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T H E 


WANDERING JEW 


AMERICA. 


A NOVEL. 


BY WILLIAM MACON COLEMAN. 


J. G. HESTER, Publisher, 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 


(Price, FIFTY CEJITS. 


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THE 0 

is-^i 

WANDERING JEW 

AMERICA. 


A NOVEL. 


BY WILLIAM MACON COLEMAN. 


J. G. HESTER, Publisher, 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 


(Price, FIFTY CEJITS. 


/ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
WILLIAM MACON COLEMAN, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
(Eight to dramatise reserved.) 


Gift of 

Estate of W. R. Hesselbadk* 
1920 . 








CONTENTS 


The Last Formula 

Chapter I. 

Rose 

Chapter II. 

5 

Feed My Sheep 

Chapter III. 

7 

In the Eddies 

Chapter IV. 

9 

The Bill 

Chapter V. 

10 

Quack 

Chapter VI. 

11 

Twin Souls 

Chapter VII. 

14 

The Prize 

Chapter VIII. 

16 

The Contract 

Chapter IX. 

19 

Compensation 

Chapter X. 

23 

The Report 

Chapter XI. 

24 

Spiritualism 

Chapter XII. 

26 

Wanted a Partner 

Chapter XIII. 

31 

Specks of Cloud 

Chapter XIV. 

34 

The Mistake 

Chapter XV. 

36 

The Tableaux 

Chapter XVI. 

38 

Nobby Dick 

Chapter XVII. 

42 

The Plot 

Chapter XVIII. 

43 


IV 

CONTENTS. 

My Country 

Chapter XIX. 

46 

Retributive Justice 

Chapter XX. 

49 

De Profundis 

Chapter XXI. 

50 

The Last Struggle 

Chapter XXII. 

52 

Chapter XXIII. 

The Sacrifice 

56 

Ad Finem 

Chapter XXIY. 

56 


THE WANDERING JEW IN AMERICA. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE LAST FORMULA. 

“ Dust to dust and ashes to ashes,” repeated the officiating clergyman, as he 
stood at the foot of an open grave, where the last mortal remains of Jules DeVaughn 
had just been placed to rest forever. 

The clods rattled upon the coffin boards. The men relieved each other by turns 
at filling in the earth until the grave was closed. 

“ Man that is born of a woman,” repeated the clergyman, (k is of few days and 
full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down : he fleeth also as a 
shadow and continueth not. Turn from him that he may rest, till he shall accom- 
plish as an hireling his day. For there is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will 
sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root 
thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through 
the scent of water it will bud and bring forth like a plant. But man dieth and 
wasteth away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he? As the waters fail 
from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down, and riseth 
not ; till the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their 
sleep.” 

All was over. 

It was an unpretending funeral. The hearse, one carriage for Bose, the only 
child and surviving relative of the deceased, and one taken by some sympathizing 
neighbors, together with a few stragglers who had fallen in from sheer listlessness or a 
want of anything to occupy their time, made up the procession. 

This little company, assembled to witness these final ceremonies, dispersed to 
their homes, their pursuits and their pleasures. Jules DeVaughn, the artist, had 
been buried ; that was all ; and the little world that knew him at once forgot him. 

But Bose did not forget. She gave no expression in sobs and tears to the over- 
whelming grief that bore her young soul to the earth. Mute, calm, and pale as the 
marble slabs around her, she sought her home that chill and dreary afternoon, 
through the fitful wind moaning about her and floating down the yellow leaves of 
autumn. 


CHAPTEB II. 


ROSE. 

Bose DeVaughn was now left alone without a friend in the world to whom she 
could apply for counsel and assistance. The rent for their humble apartments had 
been paid for the month, and for the present, at least, she was sure of a home. There 
were a few dollars in the purse, and she could dispose of some superfluous articles, 
which would add a little to her scanty stock of funds. But after this was exhausted, 
what then ? The lilies of the field toil not, neither do they spin ; the happy spar- 
rows chirrup the live long day, and are always sure to find their food. But Bose was 
neither a lily or a sparrow ; she was a friendless girl in a wide city with just enough 
means to supply her present necessities. 

When she had returned and entered her little sitting-room an overpowering 


6 


THE WANDEKING JEW 


sense of loneliness and desolation fell upon her. The fire was burning briskly in the 
stove, but she would not prepare the frugal evening meal for her father. His slippers 
were hanging in their usual place, but she would not get them down this evening. 
His large arm-chair was standing at the table where he used to sit and study and pur- 
sue his art, but the chair was empty and its old occupant had no need for it now. 
His bed had been removed, and the vacant place where it had stood so long made 
such a change in the appearance of the chamber that Rose started when she observed 
it. Upon her father’s table was his flute, oiled and laid away with care in its mahog- 
any ca^e. Henceforth it would be silent. By the flute-case was a copy of Jean Paul, 
which had been her father’s constant companion. Often had he read selections from 
its pages to Kose, and she had learned to love its moon-lit haze of mysticism, and in 
a measure to comprehend it. She would hear the rich, mellow voice of her father 
intonating its broken sentences no more — no more ! 

In contemplating these dear relics of her dear lost father, Eose found at length 
relief in tears. And sleep, too, came at last and scattered the sacred incense from his 
golden censer over her wearied body and aching heart, and her fresh young spirit 
wandered far away with the music of her father’s flute among the shadows of the land 
of dreams, while her father rested in one of the cemeteries on the outskirts of Wash- 
ington City. 

Jules DeVaughn had been one of that large class of emigrants who sought the 
shores of America during the political troubles of 1848 which convulsed all Europe. 
In his younger days he had given an indifferent attention to art, for which he had a 
real passion, and had studied music and painting in some of the schools of Italy and 
Germany. When the eventful days of the revolution arrived, and the heart of 
Europe’s millions began to throb again with a hope that had slumbered since 1789, 
Jules DeVaughn relinquished his desultory studies entirely and hastened to his home 
in the South of France to take part in the general conflict. 

The first condition of a successful revolution had been achieved, and Louis 
Phillippe was an exile. But Jules DeVaughn was not a prudent politician. His 
artistic and enthusiastic nature pursued the ideal in society and government as it pur- 
sued the ideal beautiful in art. He was, therefore, mortified and disgusted with the 
compromising measures of the Republican leaders, who, instead of building upon new 
foundations, as they might have done, apologized to the Bourgeoisie, continued the 
existing order under a new regime and paved the way for the empire. As long as 
there was any hope in opposition, Jules DeVaughn opposed this policy with all the 
energy of his nature. But with the banishment of Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin he 
saw the final success of the reactionary party and the downfall of all his hopes. His 
own name, too, was on the lists of the proscribed, and though, owing to his less promi- 
nent position and his narrower sphere of influence he might have been spared a pro- 
cess and e.scaped their fate, yet the Bourgeoisie, through the aid of the press, had suc- 
ceeded in bringing the consistent radicals into such disfavor with the people that Jules 
DeVaughn found his situation a very embarrassing one. He was regarded with dis- 
trust and suspicion. He lived under the constant espionage of the police, and was 
liable to be arrested on a charge of complicity in conspiracy or treason whenever any 
of the hot and reckless spirits of that day might enter into any such wild and hopeless 
undertaking. 

For these reasons he determined to emigrate from France to the United States, 
to abandon politics forever and to devote himself for the future to art and to art 
alone. His wife, whom he had married in Italy, had died during the revolutionary 
times, and had left him Rose, a nut brown, dark-eyed child, who was four years old 
when her father embarked at Havre for New York. 

After arriving in America, he adhered rigidly to his original purpose to eschew 
politics and to cling to art. He never became even a naturalized citizen, still prefer- 
ing to owe allegiance to the land of his birth, although it had banished him so harsh- 
ly from its soil. 

But Jules De Vaughn was as unsuccessful with art in America as he had been 
in politics in France. And for the same reasons. Had he painted theatres, railway 
coaches, ornamental signs, or the panels in fashionable barber shops, he would soon 
have earned a reputation that an American business man would have been proud to 
enjoy. He could have laid on the strong colors with a dazzling brilliancy that 
would have been the delight of American contractors, and he would have reaped 


IN AMERICA. 


7 


substantial rewards for his work. But he did not choose to do so. He refused to de- 
grade art either for the applause or the dollars of the mob. 

The consequence was that he did not prosper. The little patrimony he had 
brought from France was nearly gone, and there was nothing coming in to take its 
place. 

He left New York, and after wandering from city to city with no better success 
finally located himself in Washington, where he spent the last fiveyears of his earthly 
life. 

Broken down with trials, privations, disappointments and wanderings, and in de- 
clining health and prematurely old and grey, he determined from the time of his set- 
tlement in Washington to cease his vain efforts to make a generation of practical busi- 
ness men recognize his art and to give his few remaining years to Kose. 

The two had lived together in the strictest seclusion. But few had known the 
artist and his daughter at all, and these few had no further acquaintance than merely 
an acquaintance by sight and name. The father, driven to it from the necessity of 
daily bread, painted those gaudy pictures in flaming colors which are the admiration 
of what is vulgarly known as the “fancy,” and Rose sold them to the dealers. There 
was art even in these pictures — a mocking irony — which the artist could have de- 
tected, but which the purchasers could not see. The proceeds derived from these 
sales were small, but by dint of economy the two were able to enjoy the necessaries of 
life — if that can be called enjoyment which is merely the prevention of physical suf- 
fering — and Rose wanted for nothing which was necessary for her intellectual and 
aesthetic development. 

Their tastes were simple and their habits frugal. The father had often perform- 
ed the offices of a mother when Rose was a child and now Rose performed the little 
domestic duties with her own hands. The father submitted with a philosophic resig- 
nation to the inevitable and Rose could conceive of no greater happiness than the so- 
ciety of her father. 

In the .spring time and in the balmy days of Indian summer, they would take 
long walks among the hills which overlook the broad Potomac arid stroll hand in 
hand like two children, stopping to gather flowers and grasses and insects. In the 
sultry summer months they would take an humble cottage in some nook among the 
neighboring mountains. In the long winter nights when the silent white snow was 
falling or the storm was raging and the driving sleet was pattering against the shut- 
ters, Jules DeVaughn would read to his daughter selections from the great poets of 
Italy and England and from the great prose writersand dramatists of France. Some-, 
times Rose would get her cithern and play and sing some of the joyful airs of south- 
ern France which her father had taught her. But this she would not do unless re- 
quested, for it made her father grave and thoughtful. Some times she would read or 
sew while her father, with a passiow which is faithful until death, would sit in his 
arm chair at his table and sketch designs for the canvas or compose strange, wild mel- 
odies which never found favor and were only executed by himself. 

And Rose was happy. She did not know that her father had wasted his years 
and his genius in trying to represent in finite forms that unity in which music and 
painting and all the arts find their common source and centre. Of the two spirits 
which are given to finer souls to accompany them through life, Rose had known but 
one, the gentle and companionable spirit of the beautiful. She had not yet arrived at 
the top of those perilous heights, where the sense-world recedes and when the strong 
and silent angel would come to carry her on his powerful wing over the jagged preci- 
pices which would sink before her. 


CHAPTER III. 


FEET) MY SHEEP. 

“Mrs. Hearsey’s grand party comes of! next Thursday evening,” 


said Mrs. 


8 


THE WANDERING JEW 


Doctor Plesington to her husband, the Reverend Doctor Charles Plesington, entering 
his study and handing him the cards of invitation. 

Doctor Plesington looked at the cards. The style was unobjectionable. The billet 
was of thick English cream laid paper with an illuminated monogram at the heading. 

“ We shall go, I presume?” added Mrs. Plesington with a timid and inquiring 
look and accent. 

“ It is a duty we owe to society,” replied her husband, with an air of solemnity, 
returning the billet to the large square envelope with pointed flap. “ It is a duty we 
owe to society, my dear.” 

Mrs. Plesington was not, to speak correctly, afraid of her husband ; she was merely 
embarrased in his presence ; he was so infinitely superior to her in genius and good- 
ness, she thought. 

She slipped easily to the sofa and sat down, as if taking some great liberty. 

“ They say the Hearseys are enormously rich,” she continued, looking into the 
glowing coals in the grate. 

“ They have reaped the just rewards of diligence and honesty. Their lives and 
conversation exemplify the true spirit of genuine Christianity. They are ornaments 
to the high circle of society in which they move and strong pillars to my congrega- 
tion,” returned the Doctor with a tone, and a slight cast of the eyes heavenward. 

“ They seem more indebted to chance — ” 

“ To Providence, my dear,” interrupted the Doctor. 

“To Providence I mean,” replied his wife, “for their good fortune than to any 
exertions or merit of their own.” 

Doctor Plesington never put aside the clerical manner and its peculiar form of 
expression when addressing his wife 

‘‘Mr. William Hearsey,” he resumed, “entered the ranks in the humble capacity 
of a private soldier and shouldered his musket at his country’s call.” 

“ Yes ; certainly;” assented his wife. 

“ His meritorious sevices were soon recognized and promotion followed with 
rapidity until the private soldier became one of the chief commissaries of the army of 
the West.” 

“He had a cousin in Congress, and they say he sold whiskey to the soldiers on 
pay day, which we all know was wrong,” added Mrs. Plesington. 

“Not necessarily wrong my dear, by any means,” answered the dialectic Doctor. 

“ The French army is provided with regular rations of wine, and to cut off* the 
allowance of grog in the British navy would be equivalent to producing a general mu- 
tiny among the sailors. Any physician will tell you that a stimulent is useful in 
cases of physical privation and fatigue. You remember Paul’s advice to Timothy. 
And if Mr. Hearsey added to his means by the enterprise of which you have just 
spoken, what he received was but the legitimate profits of trade.” 

“ Yes ; certainly,” acquiesced his wife submissively ; what you say is all very 
true ; if only Mrs. Hearsey were a little more refined,” she continued, however, im- 
pelled by a love of innocent gossip, a weakness common to the best of her sex. 

Doctor Plesington explained. 

“ It is true,” he said, “ that Mrs. Hearsey did not, in her earlier years, enjoy 
those advantages which are only to be derived from thorough training and an associa- 
tion with elegant society. But it is not true, begging your pardon, that she is lacking 
in any of those accomplishments which go to make up the truly noble woman.” 

Mrs. Plesington yielded as usual to the superior judgement of her husband and 
rose to retire. 

“ One word, my dear, before you go,” said her husband. “While speaking of 
Mrs. Hearsey, I have this to observe in addition to what I have already said, and 
that is, that Mrs. Hearsey possesses one preeminent characteristic trait which you would 
do well to copy. I allude to her firmness. I know your artless and confiding nature 
and I know that you are liable to be imposed upon, that you actually are imposed 
upon. You listen to the complaints of the ignorant, the vicious and the low, and you 
believe them to be true. You think they are suffering from hunger, cold and naked- 
ness and you occupy your time in searching them out and giving them food, medicine 
and clothing, in place of performing those social duties which are so especially incum - 
bent upon your sex. When they tell you that they are seeking employment and are 
unable to find it, they are deceiving you. Such a state of affairs may exist in Europe, 


IN AMERICA. 


9 


but it is impossible that a man or a woman who is willing to work should suffer want 
in our enlightened Christian community. Their misfortunes are but the results of their 
own indolence and vice, and the course which you are pursuing rather encourages 
them in their evil habits than tends to their wholesome reformation. 

There was not the slightest admixture of severity in these remarks. The Doc- 
tor’s manner was, if possible, more than usually mild and gentle. What kind solici- 
tude for his wife ! What a lively interest in the real welfare of the suffering poor! 

His wife, at least, thought so, and glided noiselessly from the study without a word 
in reply, deeply impressed with the vast scope of her husband’s efforts — which would 
not permit him to see the sorrow and distress immediately around him — and more pro- 
foundly impressed, on this very account, with a sense of her own duty to continue in 
her own humble way her work of doing good. 

After his wife had left the room, the Reverend Doctor Charles Plesington locked 
the door to prevent intrusion from visitors and lunched heartily on hot buttered toast, 
cold partridge and half a bottle of generous Burgundy. After finishing his repast, he 
locked a drawer in his desk and took out and lighted a roasted coffee colored 
cigar, rested his feet upon a cushioned ottoman and reclined before the fire in his easy 
chair. 


CHAPTER IV. 

IN THE EDDIES. 

Rose had to be fed and housed and clothed. There was no one to do this for her 
and it followed, of course, that she had to do it for herself. 

She was a brave girl, and set to work at once to take an inventory of the capital, 
as it is called, in her possession to begin life with and lay her plans for the future. 

She could draw and paint and sing and play on the cithern ; she was thoroughly 
acquainted with the elementary branches and could read, write and speak English, 
French and Italian with ease and fluency. 

How to make these accomplishments available ? 

From determining to hire as a governess or a teacher, a merciful Providence and 
an inborn sense and spirit of independence and a love of freedom prevented her. She 
never once seriously thought of the stage, though she could think of no other means 
of applying her musical talent. Not having a very wide margin for selection, she 
finally made up her mind to try painting and selling pictures, and to advertise for 
adult pupils desiring to learn Italian and French. These two occupations would not 
conflict. She could paint during the day, but not by gas-light, so she would have 
her evenings free to give instruction to any who might come to her place of residence. 

She would continue to live at her present home. The rooms were small — very 
small — but the rent was proportionately low. Pier father’s bed room had been their 
common sitting room. The bed had been removed and she would keep this for her 
own little parlor. The parlor opened into a sleeping apartment, which was merely a 
cabinet and properly belonged to the parlor, which fronted on the street. Both were 
let together, and Rose would retain them. She would continue to prepare her meals 
in tin? parlor cooking stove and would not need a servant. 

Rose was just sixteen aud strange as the fact may appear, it had never once 
occured to her that she was possessed of a rare and remarkable beauty. But there was 
one at least, well aware of the fact. He had frequently observed her walks with her 
father, and upon one occasion had watched her home to ascertain her place of abode. 

While Rose was thus casting about for the future, this same individual was mov- 
ing backwards and forwards on the opposite side walk in full front of her window, cry- 
ing, “ R-a-c-k-s ! R-a-c-k-s / R-a-c-k-s ! ” 

Rose’s attention had been directed to him by his protracted halt in the immediate 
vicinitv and she was annoyed, besides, by the constant repetition of his dull and 
monotone cries. She knew that he belonged to the class of street merchants who 
bought anything and everything, and the thought at once occured to her that she 
could dispose of some unnecessary lumber to him. 

She raised her window and beckoned him to come. He obeyed the call with alacrity. 

It would have been difficult to have found anywhere a more miserable specimen 
of his type or profession. He wore an immense overcoat, which was gray and brown, 


10 


THE WANDERING JEW 


but which might once have been black or blue. It was sleek, shiny with dust and 
grease, and was stitched in all varieties of length in all possible directions. His hat, 
which he did not remove when he entered the room, was a cylinder which had 
passed through the first colors and had taken a dingy, foxy red. He had on a ragged 
red cravat ornamented with a huge brass pin. His overcoat was wrapped loosely 
over his chest, and a portion of his bosom front, which was exposed, was ripped in 
parallel strips and was filthy and discolored. His eyes were small and keen and his 
nose had that unmistakable contour which characterizes the venders of old clothes 
and cheap jewelry. His manner was rude and vulgar. Rose shrunk back in disgust 
when he entered the chamber. 

She explained the object of her call and offered several articles for sale. They 
were purchased at the price put upon them by the Jew. 

“I gifs you more monish for your dings as any udder man ; vat else you got to sell ; 
eh?” said the merchant, examining the chamber and its contents with scrutinizing 
looks, and regarding Rose with a coarse, brutal stare. 

Rose informed him that she was done trading for the present, and the Jew backed 
out, with his stare fixed upon her until she closed the door in his face. 

“A treasure I” chuckled the Jew to himself, changing his tone and accent when he 
was fairly on the street again; il a treasure! and mine she must and shall be at any 
cost! If gold and Madame Zarowski’s intrigues do not succeed, we will try what 
virtue there is in starvation ; if that fail, blacken her reputation and drive her from 
the world. Then she is mine, soul and body mine ! Ha!” ejaculated the Jew, “I 
would like to see one of the pretty birds escape me when she is sixteen, alone in the 
world and dependent on her own exertions to sustain life. It would be less expen- 
sive to starve her at first, but that would be to rob my pretty fawn of her beauty; no, 
not starvation, if it can be accomplished by gold and Zarowski’s art. Oh my little 
fluttering partridge ! I shall cage you soon ! I have use for you.” 

The Jew, who rejoiced in the name of Isaacs, made a circuitous route home, crept 
stealthily up a back alley and entered his house from a back yard. He divested him- 
self of his filthy garments, laid aside a wig of grisly hair and his artificial whiskers 
and dressed himself in his ordinary fashionable costume, and was soon busy among 
books and papers, working away in the interests of the Grand Consolidated Railway 
Land Grant Bill. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE BILL. 

“ These are some of the deplorable results which must inevitably follow if the 
Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill becomes a law.” 

This was the concluding sentence of an article, which George Hales, a journalist, 
had carefully prepared for one of the great New York dailies. 

The article never saw the light, for the paper to which it was sent had been ab- 
sorbed in the interest of the lobby. 

Not only the journal to which the article had been forwarded, but all the other 
journals of influence in the country had been retained in the same way. 

The consequence was that George Hales’ valuable communication, full of interest- 
ing history, statistics, facts and dates, with its telling arguments and earnest protests, 
lay in one of the pigeon-holes of his desk and the dust from the stove settled upon it. 

The bill in question conveyed to a railroad company an empire of the public 
lands. The area of territory to be conveyed, deeded, granted and forever given away 
to a corporation consisting of a dozen or more persons, was larger than any kingdom 
of Europe excepting Russia. It was nearly equal in extent to the original thirteen 
colonies of the confederation. Its mineral resources were of untold value, its climate 
salubrious and its rich virgin soil nourished in luxurious abundance the primeval for- 
ests of the continent. It was traversed by deep and broad rivers, it contained moun- 
tains of iron and coal, vast prairies and grazing lands, broad rich valleys of amazing 
fertility, water power sufficient for the manufacturing purposes of a hemisphere, and 


IN AMERICA. 


11 


innumerable convenient sites for future towns and cities. It would one day support a 
hundred millions of inhabitants. It was such an empire as Alexander the Great 
might have alloted to one of his generals. It was a greater one than ever Napoleon 
Bonapart bestowed upon any of the kings that he created. And this colossal domain 
was to be given away ! given to a corporation ; a corporation composed of a dozen or 
more individuals! The emigrant and actual settler were to be deprived of their priv- 
ileges. Millions of unborn American citizens were to be reduced to pauperism. 
Humanity itself was to be robbed of its rights. 

Never before in the history of the world had such a stupendous prize been placed 
within the reach of private commercial ambition. No wonder that the press had 
been subsidized, no wonder that lawyers and politicians and public speakers had 
been hired to traverse the country and write and speak and exert all their influ- 
ence in favor of the Grand Consolidated Kail way Land Grant Bill. No wonder that 
millions on millions of treasure were expended in the effort to secure its passage. 
Life, hope, happiness and virtue must all be sacrificed, if needs be, to secure the bill. 
No cost was to be spared, no sacrifice avoided, no risk or danger shunned to accom- 
plish this result. 

George Hales was a popular writer and for that reason, perhaps, unknown to the 
world of journalism, though this was his profession. He steadfastly refused to prosti- 
tute himself to the uses for which hireling Bohemians are most usually employed. 
Therefore he remained poor, while more practical, but less accomplished men of his 
class around him were slowly and surely gathering wealth. 

Some of the purest hearts and clearest brains of the country opposed the bill, and 
Hales was among the number. But he was dependent upon his pen for a living and 
could not afford to devote his time to writing even against overshadowing and con- 
trolling monopolies without pay ; and he had to content himself within a narrower 
sphere and with lower wages. 

So his manuscript article remained in the pigeon-hole of his desk and the dust 
settled upon it. 

It is proper to mention in this connection, that Hales had had repeated inter- 
views with Mr. Isaacs, a financial agent of a London banking house, and also with 
Mr. Hearsey, a celebrated railroad man, and that the object of these interviews had 
been to induce Hales to give his journalistic support to the bill, which as we have 
seen, he steadily refused to do. 


CHAPTER VI. 

QUACK. 

Mr. Hearsey was not a member of the order of the Cincinnati, but he was the 
legal owner of one of the most magnificent residences of Washington City. His 
wealth was enormous, and Mrs. Hearsey could give parties equaled by few and ex- 
celled by none. She could command the attendance of any of the really and practi- 
cally great men of the country whom she might choose to invite ; and as for fashion- 
able ladies, much as they abused her behind her back, those who were the fortunate 
recipients of her cards were always careful to leave them carelessly exposed on the 
top of the card pile in their baskets. 

It is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that the company assembled at Mrs. 
Hearsey’s house on the evening appointed for her party was select. 

Seated on a crimson velveted sofa in the corner of one of the rooms were the 
Misses Woggles, gayly entertaining a lot of young department clerks, invited to per- 
form the male part of the dancing. The elder Miss Woggles had read an original 
poem a short time previous at a literary soiree and was ambitious to become the centre 
of a circle of her own. 

Mrs. McWhorter, an eminently conservative lady, was deploring, in an opposite 
corner, to old General Bingo, the latitudinarianism of her sex at the present 
day, while her four amiable daughters were promenading in the hall and talking and 
looking all kinds of nonsense to four young men. 

Professor Puffer was there, explaining to some elderly females the qualities of a 


12 


THE WANDERING JEW 


remarkable oil he had compounded, and which, on the strength of some certificates 
that he had been promised by certain members of Congress, he intended to bring be- 
fore the public. 

Dr. Pilham,who had already made his fortune on a magic bitters of some descrip- 
tion, overheard Professor Puffer’s remarks in passing, and expressed a doubt to the 
lady at his side that Professor Puffer’s remedy would accomplish all that the Profes- 
sor promised for it. 

Jacocks, of the firm of Jacocks Bro’s, was discussing with Shorts, of Langley & 
Shorts, the depreciation of public securities and the advisability of Western lands. 

Lawyer Snagg was entertaining Mrs. Fidgette with the history of the law of 
divorce. 

Mrs. Crimples, with a marriageable daughter well in hand, was telling Potts, a 
well to do hardware merchant and batchelor how she used to know Mrs. Packham, 
who was blazing in jewels across the room, when she made pies and sold them to the 
soldiers. Mrs. Crimples informed the hardware merchant further that Miss Pack- 
ham, Mrs. Packham’s daughter, who was flirting at that moment with a West Point 
cadet, was sadly deficient in early education and training. Mrs. Crimples did not os- 
tentatiously display jewels herself, but if family was to be taken into account, she 
would not be afraid to compare notes with some people. 

The company was entirely too large, and the topics of conversation too numer- 
ous and too frequently changing, to give more than a few random expressions picked 
up here and there in the general hum and buzz of voices. There were present mer- 
chants, lawyers, judges, doctors, professors, members of Congress, clergymen and 
clerks. They talked of business, literature, art, politics, religion, fashion, scandals 
and the current events of the day. It was evident that all were enjoying themselves, 
immensely, whatever they may have said in disparagement of Mrs. Hearsey or her 
entertainment after they left her house. As to the genuineness of the carpets, the 
luxury of the furniture, the brocade and the brocatelle, the Persian and the Italian 
cloths, the Sevres porcelain, the gauzes and the muslins, the silks and the 
the satins, the pearls and the diamonds, the ribbons, the laces and the velvets, the 
snowy undergear, the shoulder straps and the gold lace, the exact descriptions of the 
ladies and the number and names of the guests, Jenkins was there to record it all 
and a faithful report appeared in the next morning’s paper. 

It was about eleven o’clock, and the elder guests had instinctively gravitated to- 
gether to the lower drawing room. Mrs. Hearsey, fatigued with the labors of the eve- 
ning, was reclining on a divan in as languishing an attitude as her great size and 
large bones would permit, and by her side was the Reverend Doctor Charles Plesing- 
ton. 

Mrs. Hearsey had not, in early life, mingled with those people who constitute 
what is generally understood under the term “society.” She had sometimes chopped 
off a hog’s head or torn off a side of spare ribs for some of their servants, but this was 
as near as she ever approached in those days. For her father was a pork butcher 
and Mrs. Hearsey used to help in the business and she was better acquainted with the 
sharp crackling of boiling fat and the smells of the slaughter-house than with the 
crisp rustling of atlas and the perfumes of Araby. A lucky speculation in hogs, a 
rise in the price and a contract to supply the Western army, made her father’s fortune. 
He retired from business, and Mrs. Hearsey left the stall. Shortly thereafter her 
father died, and she, being his only child, became the possessor of his estate and 
married Mr. Hearsey, whose rise in life was owing, as we have seen, to somewhat 
similar circumstances. 

If there was nothing specially attractive about Mrs. Hearsey’s person or manner 
there was certainly nothing repulsive about them. She was near forty-five, in robust 
health, and though her features were coarse and large, she could not be said to be 
positively ill-looking. And then when she was alone with Dr. Plesington there 
was a knowing twinkle about her eye, or a look or a tone of melancholy, or an inde- 
scribable softness and disposition to draw nearer to him, that greatly added to her at- 
tractions. 

Doctor Plesington smiled upon Mrs. Hearsey. 

Mrs. Hearsey smiled upon Doctor Plesington. 

This innocent flirtation was interrupted at this interesting point by the approach 
of Mr. Hearsey, the husband, who inquired of his wife in an anxious and uneasy 


IN AMERICA. 


13 


manner, “what could possibly detain the Senator and Madame Zarowski?” 

“I do not know I am sure, nor do I care/' replied his spouse in an angry and con- 
temptuous tone, which might have been heard by every one in the room; for Mrs. 
Hearsey had not acquired that command of her temper which is indispensable in ele- 
gant society. “I have been waiting supper for them,” she continued, “an hour, be- 
cause you begged me to, and I shall wait just fifteen minutes more by the clock and 
not one minute longer ; it’s all the doings of that foreigner Zowski, or what you call 
her. She wanted to keep the Senator with her as long as she could, and then come 
late to make a sensation. The people are getting hungry, I know, by this time, and 
the young ones want to go to dancing. I shan’t invite her again to any of my parties 
1 know.” 

Mr. Hearsey was too well accustomed to such demonstrations to manifest any ex- 
citement. He merely turned on his heel and walked away to resume his conversa- 
tion with Isaacs, whom he had introduced into Washington society that evening as a 
financial agent of an old established banking house in London. 

One reason for Mrs. Hearsey’s outbreak on this occasion might have been the 
abrupt termination of her pleasant tete-a-tete with Doctor Plesington, who had taken 
this occasion to desert her side ; or her wrath might have arisen from the profounder 
fact that she suspected from former observations that Madame Zarowski had found 
favor in the eyes of Doctor Plesington. 

Jacocks, of Jacocks Bro’s, had joined Mr. Hearsey and Mr. Isaacs, and the two 
former were soon engaged in an earnest and animated conversation, though it was 
carried on in an under tone. Isaacs was imperturbably calm and seemed utterly in- 
different to the subject matter which so deeply interested his companions. 

“ The Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill must become a law this ses- 
sion of Congress,” said Mr. Hearsey in a low, but resolute and determined tone. 

“ A very desirable result without doubt,” said Jacocks, “we can count upon the 
House ; but the Senate ; if only the Senator ” 

He did not finish his sentence. There was a visible commotion among the com- 
pany and in a moment more a liveried footman in knee breeches, but lacking the 
powdered wig, announced the Senator and Madame Zarowski. 

Mrs. Hearsey greeted the Senator cordially, but the cold reception extended to 
Madame Zarowski was ludicrously in contrast with that accorded to her escort. 

Madame Zarowski was not in the slightest degree disconcerted. She barely 
touched Mrs. Hearsey’s hand with the tips of her delicately gloved fingers. She did 
not even seem to observe Mrs. Hearsey’s presence at all, and remarked to herself in 
distinct language, for Mrs. Hearsey’s benefit, that she had been so agreeably entertain- 
ed by the Senator, that she had forgotten all about the stupid ball until the Senator 
had called it to her attention. 

Mrs. Hearsey was furious. Indeed there is no telling what she would not have 
done then and there, had not Doctor Plesington, like a guardian angel as he was, ap- 
peared on the scene just in the nick of time to prevent a catastrophe by calling Mrs. 
Hearsey’s attention and apologizing for the absence of his wi fe, who was detained 
by illness. 

Mrs. Hearsey was always ready to accept any apology for the absence of Mrs. 
Plesington when Doctor Plesington was present. 

The apology was entirely satisfactory and the pair resumed their seats and the 
conversation where they had been interrupted by Mr. Hearsey wondering what de- 
tained the two guests who had just made their appearance. 

Doctor Plesington smiled upon Mrs. Hearsey. 

Mrs. Hearsey smiled upon Doctor Plesington. 

“ Do you think, Doctor, that marraiges are made in heaven?” artlessly inquired 
Mrs. Hearsey. 

“ In one" sense, yes ; in another sense, I should return an answer in the negative,” 
replied the dialectician. 

“ I don’t know that I exactly understand you, ” returned his companion, “ what 
I mean is, do you think it is wrong when we are married to — to — think of anybody 
else than our husbands or wives ? ” 

“ Our emotions, ” explained the Doctor, “ are not subject to our wills nor can they 
be made so. The laws of nature are not more inflexible in the physical world than 
the laws which control the operations of our thoughts and feelings. I love that 


14 


THE WANDERING JEW 


which is attractive and have an aversion to that which is repulsive in spite of myself. 
The sphere of morality is confined in freedom, in the will ; notin the attempt to evade 
or resist immutable law. But the unwarranted extremes to which this doctrine is car- 
ried is astounding. The paramount consideration is the proprieties of society. ” 

While the Doctor was laying down these principles, his eye was following the 
graceful aud haughty form of Madame Zarowski, who in her turn was not long at a 
time absent from the side of the Senator. 

Supper was announced and quickly dispatched by the hungry guests. The music 
commenced, the dancers took their places and the work of the young department 
clerks began. 

While the dancing was going on, Mr. Hearsey made the Senator acquainted with 
Mr. Isaacs, the financial agent of one of the oldest banking houses in London. The 
Senator was glad to make Mr. Isaacs’ acquaintance. Mr. Isaacs felt highly honored 
by an introduction to the Senator. 

“ Mr. Isaacs, Madame Zarowski;” said Mr. Hearsey. Zarowski bowed with dig- 
nity ; Isaacs bowed profoundly. He asked the pleasure of her arm for a promenade. 
The request was granted, and the two passed into the hall and the back piazza for a 
breath of fresh air, leaving Mr. Hearsey and the Senator in conversation. 

“Is the Senator still as intractable as ever?” asked Isaacs when the two were 
alone. 

“Quite so,” was the reply. 

“ Then your charms have lost their wonted power, Irene,” said Isaacs with a fine 
tinge of sarcasm. 

Zarowski made no reply. 

“ The love of money is not his passion,” soliloquized the Jew rather than ad- 
dressed himself to his companion. 

“ His own private fortune is large enough, ” interposed Zarowski. 

“ Yes ; quite large enough for one who desires no more, ” philosophized Isaacs. 
“ A petticoat may have more attractions. He seems fond of you, Irene.” 

Zarowski started but kept silence. 

“ But his fondness for you is not that all consuming fire which braves danger and 
ruin to accomplish its purpose,” continued the Jew, careless and indifferent to the 
wounds he inflicted. 

Zarowski did not reply. 

“ Irene, ” said the Jew, “ form the acquaintance of Bose De Vaughn, bring her to 
your house and introduce the Senator. Mrs. Doctor Plesington knows her and will as- 
sist you. ” 

The Jew chuckled a low chuckle to himself when he said this. 

“ There, ” said he, “ I have done ; I have no further commands for you this eve- 
ning. Let me hear a good report, for I shall see you soon. Time presses. My 
arm. ” 

He led her back to the drawing-room. The guests were beginning to take their 
leave. The Senator and Madame Zarowski soon excused themselves. Isaacs, Mr. 
Jacocks and Doctor Plesington followed shortly thereafter. 

By ones, by twos, by threes, by fours and by fives the guests disappeared. 
The Woggles, including the elder Miss Woggles, Mrs. McWhorter and her four 
amiable daughters, and old General Bingo, Professor Puffer, Doctor Pilham, Jacocks, 
of Jacocks Bro’s, Shorts, of the firm of Langley & Shorts, Snagg, the lawyer, Mrs. 
Fidgette, Mrs. Crimples, Potts, the hardware merchant, Mrs. Packham and (laughter, 
and the cadet, all went. The music ceased. Mr. and Mrs. Hearsey were left alone 
and Mrs. Hearsey’s party was over. 


CHAPTER VII. 


TWIN SOUIiS. 

George Hales, the writer and journalist, did not have an office on Newspaper 
Row or F Street. He occupied two small rooms, plainly, though tastefully furnished, 
in a less fashionable part of the city. Strictly journalistic work, by which we under- 


IN AMERICA. 


15 


stand ascertaining the facts of the past twenty-four hours and enlarging upon them in 
a sensational style, he did not do. He confined himself chiefly to making abstracts 
of documents and collating, digesting and arranging available information on inter- 
esting and important subjects. This kind of work did not pay very well, although 
his faculties of keen discrimination and of breadth of vision pre-eminently qualified 
him for that kind of intellectual labor where analysis and synthesis are indispensa- 
ble. But as the reading public makes no very great demand for this particular kind 
of talent, and as Hales had his own notions about journalism and stuck to them, he 
eked out his living by writing stories for the popular weekly press, in addition to his 
heavier work, and continued true to himself. 

He was fond of quaint literatuie and was constantly dipping into books known 
not even by name to the readers and most of the writers of the present day ; works 
on Alchemy and Astrology, the text-books of the theurgists and of the Rosicrucians, the 
treaties of Jacob Behme and Swedenborg, and the books of Ezekiel and the Revela- 
tions. He saw, or least fancied that he saw, a deep political significance in this lit- 
erature akin to that found in the book of Daniel. He looked down, or thought that 
he did, into the secret heart of the writer and saw there a profound and an infinite long- 
ing for a higher state for man on earth than the positivists and the skeptics had ever 
permitted him to hope for. He was a poet, though he had never written verses, and 
was penetrated in every fibre of his soul and nature with the sense of religion. The 
life of a person so constituted must necessarily be a lonely one. The ordinary excite- 
ments incident to the pursuits of men, as the pleasures of friendship and of social inter- 
course, did not meet the wants he felt or supply any worthy goal for his aspirations. 
He saw no hope in waging a contest for ideals against the combined powers of or- 
ganized society. He would rather cease to struggle to make men recognize them, 
and would worship his gods alone in the solitudes of his own soul. 

One morning while sipping his coffee and glancing over the papers, his eye 
chanced to light on an advertisement in which a young lady proposed to give in- 
structions to adult pupils in French and Italian. Hales wanted a translation of some 
old Italian legends and stories, and the thought occurred to him that he would call on 
the ‘‘young lady” and see if she were qualified to do the work. 

That evening he dressed himself with somewhat more care than usual, drew on 
his overcoat and gloves and started out to go to the street and number designated in 
the advertisement. 

After a half an hour’s walk he arrived at the place of his destination. He rang 
the bell, inquired for the lady and was shown to the door of Rose DeVaughn’s little 
sitting-room. He knocked and Rose opened the door and admitted him. 

Hales saw what he did not expect to see, or rather he had not expected anything 
at all further than the common place business transaction of going to a translator and 
leaving some work. But when he stood in Rose’s little parlor and saw her dressed in 
a dark red skirt and a closely-fitting black silk bodice that showed the form of a 
bust and a pair of shouders that Rubens would have adored, saw her luxuriant jet 
black hair loosely gathered in a loop and falling in massive tresses down her back, 
gazed upon the rich color of her dark brown face and felt the influence of her large 
and lustrous eyes, George Hales forgot for a moment all about the package of Italian 
volumes that he had in his hands and stood transfixed to the spot, enraptured with the 
beauteous creature before him. His heart and soul absorbed her beauty like a thirsty 
sponge. The blood pulsed quicker along his veins. Strange and novel sensations, 
such as he had never experienced before, trembled along his nerves. All the vague, 
wild, restless, infinite longings and yearnings and hopes of the soul within him were 
in harmony and he bathed in a deep, calm sea of joy and rest. The infinite and ideal 
had become incarnate and real in the form of a woman. 

Once in the course of a complex physical and spiritual existence a transfiguration is 
possible for such natures as George Hales’ and upon this occasion he had made the 
transition. 

Such a transition is sudden and tempestuous ; when it comes there is no room 
for thought and feeling — all is spontaneiety. 

When he had recovered himself, he stamered out the object of his visit. 

Rose, utterly unconscious of what Hales had experienced, bade him be seated 
and state more particularly what he wished. 

Hales complied, and as books had to be handled between them, he naturally 


16 


THE WANDERING JEW 


took a seat by her side for their mutual convenience. 

After looking over the volumes generally for some time, a longer time than was 
in fact necessary to give that general view of their contents, which Hales undertook to 
do, one volume was taken and a story was selected for translation. The probabilities 
are, that if Rose had not been able to do the work in the most satisfactory manner, 
Hales would nevertheless have given her the job. But she was thoroughly compe- 
tent to do it and to do it in the very best taste. 

The purposes for which Hales wished these translations did not require a writ- 
ten version. He only wanted the plot to re-arrange and work up in his novelettes. 

It took Rose over an hour to make the translation, for she took greater pains to be 
accurate in words than was required for the object in view. 

During the reading, Hales continued by Rose’s side that he might catch every 
word she uttered. Sometimes Rose would turn her full face on him and ask if 
he fully caught the meaning. Frequently he said he had not, exactly ; and would ask 
her to give it in her own language without following the words of the original. This 
she would do and that prolonged the time, and Hales could hear her voice and watch 
her changing expression. 

Nor did the time seem long to Rose or the task irksome. George Hales was the 
first man except her father with whom she had engaged in any reciprocal occupation 
or with whom she had ever been alone for an hour. And George Hales was a man for 
whom more than one woman would have risked much. He was rather tall, 
muscular and handsomely proportioned, with light auburn hair, a remarkably clear 
complexion and light grey eyes. His manners were quiet and easy, and he was natu- 
rally disposed to be silent, but when he spoke, his tones were deep and earnest. 
There was an air of entire self-reliance about him, which, without being in the 
slightest degree ostentatious and offensive, commanded universal respect. 

The translation was finished at last, and by the time it was completed, Hales and 
Rose were far advanced in each other’s acquaintance. There was nothing done or 
said or intimated with any purpose of bringing about any such result. It sprung up 
as the flowers spring up when the soil is warm and the sun shines upon them. The 
immutable laws had caught them up in their universal sweep and they were but the 
passive subjects of inexorable fate. 

Hales could find no reasonable excuse to prolong his call, and so an arrangement 
was concluded agreeable to both parties that Hales should come as often as he liked to 
have his translations made, and that she should receive a certain fixed price for her 
services. 

Hales went home filled with new reflections, new purposes and new hopes ; and 
Rose, the little Italian painter and teacher, was at the bottom of them all. Rose 
also had undergone some new experiences and went to bed that night to dream of 
George Hales and Italian stories. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE PRIZE. 

Madame Zarowski was alone in her richly furnished saloon. She was dressed for 
the evening and waiting to receive the Senator and Rose. But neither of these two 
expected guests expected to meet the other. They did not even know of each 
other’s existence. The meeting of the two had been arranged for by Madame Zarowski 
in obedience to the instructions of Isaacs at Mrs. Hearsey’s party. 

Madame Zarowski had made a visit to Mrs. Doctor Plesington to ascertain some- 
thing about Rose and find out the best way of forming her acquaintance. Mrs. Ples- 
ington had received her politely, but not in that cordial manner which was natural to 
her generally. She knew very little about Rose. She had only seen her once, and 
that was during her father’s last illness when she had called, upon hearing that a 
poor artist was sick and might be in need of attention. She had found him well cared 
for and did not repeat her visit. She knew where Rose lived then, but that was all. 
What did Madame Zarowski want with Rose, Mrs. Plesington had inquired with a 


IN AMERICA. 


17 


distrust foreign to her unsuspecting nature. The reply had been that her visitor had 
learned that Rose’s father was a painter and he might have left some pictures which 
she would like to purchase and add to her collection. 

That same evening Madame Zarowski had called on Kose and found her alone, 
happy as a bird and busily engaged in drawing designs for paintings. During her 
visit, which was a brief one, she learned from Rose the outlines of her history and 
that she had no friends and was entirely dependent upon herself. She admired 
Eose’s paintings, purchased one and paid for it, and then exacted from Rose a promise 
to*call on her the evening following at eight o’clock for some new work, and took her 
leave. But not one word did Rose say about George Hales. 

Madame Zarowski seemed to be ill at ease. She was nervous and excited, and 
* being alone, gave expression to her restlessness. She paced the room impatiently. 
She looked frequently at the elegant French clock on the black marble mantle-piece. 
Rose was to be there at eight, and the Senator had sent word that he would be there at 
nine. It was now nearly eight. 

‘‘If anything would only happen to prevent this meeting,” she said to herself, 
“but Isaacs must be obeyed ; wretched woman that I am, will nothing short of 
death deliver me from this cursed Jew!” 

Madame Zarowski was a judge of female beauty. She was beautiful herself. 
Her interview with Rose had been a short one, but she had seen enough to convince 
her, knowing as she did the temperament and disposition of the Senator, that he 
would be at Rose’s feet as soon after he had seen her as an opportunity would permit, 
and an opportunity he would make. It was this that distressed her. She loved the 
Senator as much as she was capable of loving. She did not love him solely on ac- 
count of his rank and wealth and his acknowledged abilities, but on account of all these 
together with his own individuality. Her affection towards him was something more 
than mere vanity. She had never attempted to influence him with a view to her own 
pecuniary advantage. 

It is due to truth to say this much in her behalf. The Senator, to say the least, 
was fond of her society. She was in his confidence and he spent most of his leisure 
time in her saloon. Not that he was really enamored of her person ; but then she was 
a fascinating woman in her way and when she chose to exert her power there was no 
man possessed of any sensibilities at all, who could entirely resist her. Hundreds 
were dying for her, to use the gallant phrase of the times of chivalry, to whom she 
had not extended the smallest of her favors. Society — that is, the female portion of 
it, which in fact constitutes what is thus popularly denominated — hated her, but 
feared her and invited her to its entertainments. In other days she would have 
been the queen of love and beauty to invest the conquering knight with the guerdom 
of his prowess; or she would have been a reigning toast, over which enthusiastic 
youths would have drunk themselves blind. In the time and place where her present lot 
was actually cast, she might have been queen of the lobby had she been so disposed, 
and had the shadow of Isaacs been removed from over her. 

None but a woman can fully understand the anguish of wounded pride she felt 
while waiting in her saloon for the time to come for her to enact that common-place 
part of introducing two strangers to each other. To see the triumph of her rival with 
her own eyes — ir. her own house — to see her conquest of the man she loved, and to be 
herself the instrument of bringing this fatal meeting about ! Her agony was terrible. 
Her faced flushed, her bosom heaved, her teeth were set and her whole frame trem- 
bled. Once she started as if firmly resolved on some desperate purpose, but she 
shrunk from the effort and murmured in a tone of despair, “Isaacs must be obeyed.” 

She composed herself and resumed her usual manner in time not to expose any trace 
of her emotions to a servant who entered a few minutes afterwards to announce the 
first expected visitor. 

Rose had never seen such elegance and luxury in her life before. The soft vel- 
vet carpet, the richly covered rose- wood chairs and sofas and ottomans covered with 
blue satin, the standing furniture of the finest polish and inlaid with ivory and gold 
and porcelain and worked in mosaics of pearl and tortoise shell, the articles of vertu 
ranged in etageres, the select paintings on the wall, the rich damasks and China cloths, 
and all flooded with the light of the frosted silver chandeliers sparkling with cut 
chrystal pendants, was enough to have overwhelmed a good, simple-minded girl who 
had never seen or dreamed of such splendors. Madame Zarowski observed every mo- 


18 


THE WANDERING JEW 


tion and expression of Hose’s countenance with the most intense interest. The scene 
had made no visible impression on her visitor whatever. She entered the saloon and 
was seated at Madame Zarowski’s invitation with as much ease and self-possession as 
if she were in her own cozy little parlor at home. To an imagination familiar with 
the treasures of Italy, even Madame Zarowski’s reception room was quite common 
place. This had not escaped Madame Zarowski, and she took fresh hope. An hour 
ago she could have strangled Rose ; but now, seeing what little influence external 
wealth and luxury and fashion had upon her, she might possibly become her friend. 
She was satisfied that Rose was not mercenary. Her indifference could not have been 
assumed ; her nature was too ingenuous. Perhaps after all she might reject any prop- 
osition the Senator might make, or it might be that she had a lover and was faithful. 
The supposition that the Senator would remain untouched was not entertained. 

After the usual salutation had passed between them, Madame Zarowski produced 
a large portfolio filled with drawings and designs. There were fiords and cliffs in 
Norway, forests and reindeer in Lapland, wolves and sleigh rides in the steppes of 
Russia, the turban and the crescent and scimetar , there were landscapes of the Tyrol 
and Switzerland, Italian lakes, German farm houses and French chateaux, Dutch tiles 
and gables and English lanes and cottages. Madame Zarowski had consumed consid- 
erable time in looking over and explaining the collection. Her ostensible reason wan 
to select the designs she wished to give Rose to work upon ; her real motive was to de- 
tain Rose until the arrival of the Senator. 

“I wish, Rose, you would paint this for me, ” said Madame Zarowski, giving hei 
an English country landscape which she had chosen. I think I will have work to keep 
you occupied for some time to come, and as I am the first customer, I must beg you to 
refuse all others who may come until you have finished up for me,” she added in a 
friendly tone and manner. 

Rose promised. 

“ Have you sold any of your paintings yet?” asked Madame Zarowski. 

I have offered some for sale, but the men at the shops tell me there is no market 
for such paintings as mine, ” replied Rose. 

“ You give instructions in French and Italian you told me?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Have you many pupils ? ” 

Rose blushed. Madame Zarowski noticed it. Rose thought of George Hales, 
and bashfully answered, “ not many. ” 

Madame Zarowski did not pursue her interrogations any further ; she perceived 
that Rose had not suspected the drift of her questions and she did not want to run the 
risk of arousing her suspicions. 

At this moment a light tap was heard at the door. Madame Zarowski’s lip quiv- 
ered for a moment as she said “come in, ” and the Senator entered the room. 

Before he had time to explain, for the benefit of the stranger present, the liberty 
he had taken — and which he always took — of tapping at the door of her private recep- 
tion room without any previous announcement, Madame Zarowski had introduced 
him to Rose. 

“ An artist, ” said the Senator at hap hazard to Rose, noticing the design in her 
hand — for Rose had picked it up from the table and was going to take her leave — 
“And if her skill be equal to her beauty, we shall have a new star of double mag- 
nitude in the firmament of Washington celebrities,” added the Senator, without wait- 
ing to ascertain the correctness of his first presumption. 

This speech displeased and mortified Rose. She felt that no one, much less an 
utter stranger, had any right to address her with such freedom of speech. She was 
anything but prudish and cared very little what other people thought of her so long 
as she could make a living and be at peace with her own conscience. Hence she re- 
sented this little piece of harmless gallantry by calling for her hat and cloak and tak- 
ing her leave without making the Senator any reply. Madame Zarowski was at ease 
so far as Rose was concerned. 

“What little bird of Paradise is that, Zarowski, and why have I never seen her 
before?” queried the Senator after Rose was gone. 

“ She is the daughter of a poor artist who died a short time ago and having noth- 
ing to leave her. he bequeathed her to the care of God and her country.” 

“ And are not we the country,” joked the Senator, “ and can not I make out a title 
to this pretty bon bon ?” * 


IN AMERICA. 


19 


“Not by such evidences as you gave to-night. You mortified and embarrassed 
the girl and she carried away no very favorable opinion of your most honorable self ; 
and you boast that you know women !” 

“ A spirited, hot blooded young creature, I swear,” said the Senator admiringly. 

“Not very warm towards yourself, however,” retorted the lady. 

“ The coal in your grate is as cold as a stone until it is warmed into a generous 
glow by the proper appliances,” argued the statesman. 

“ And your vanity, doubtless, leads you to take it for granted that you possess the 
necessary caloric properties, I suppose,” said the Madame. 

“ At all events, I shall put them into operation the first opportunity I find — or 
make,” rejoined the Senator. 

“ What if she have a lover?” objected Madame. 

“ Oust him from her good graces,” was the reply. 

“If she decline your honorable attentions?” interposed Madame further. 

“ Press them the harder until she accepts them,” answered the Senator. 

“ But if she holds out in her opposition ?” 

“ Then find some way to overcome it.” 

“But I tell you,” urged Madame Zarowski vehemently, “that there are some 
women whom neither arts nor entreaties, wealth or power, danger or death itself can 
overcome.” 

“ Whose acquaintance I have yet to form. But tell me ; where does the obdu- 
rate charmer make her nest? I must not loose sight of her.” 

“ Madame Zarowski gave him the particulars of her history as far as she knew 
them and gave him her address. The Senator took out his pocket-book and took 
down her number. 

The Senator had caught but a glimpse of Rose, but that alone had been sufficient 
to excite his curiosity and imagination. He was too good a critic not to have 
noticed the rich brown peach color in her cheeks, her massive natural hair; and as 
she wore her dark red skirt and tightly fitting black silk bodice he could not help 
admiring the wonderful symmetry of her form. He was already deeply enamored of 
her and was determined to see her again and to kiss those lips if art and patience and 
perseverance would enable him to do it. 

The Senator grew restive in Madame Zarowski’ s company this evening. She saw 
it and knew that the slender hold which she had upon him was giving way. He 
soon bade her good evening and retired and left her alone to her reflections. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE CONTRACT. 

It was a bitter cold night. The north wind whistled and blew and stormed. 
The sleet drove against the shutters and panes and danced and whirled along the nar- 
row alleys between the tall houses and around the corners. It was a night of suffer- 
ing and terror to the poor in their wretched hovels without fuel or sufficient clothing. 
It was a night for rousing fires and good cheer in doors. It was a night when no 
one was to be found upon the street except the homeless outcast, who sought the best 
shelter he could find in some vacant stall or in some lumber yard; or except some 
one who was on a mission involving something not much short of life or death. 

That night Doctor Plesington informed his wife that he had an appointment which 
could not by any possibility be postponed. His wife said something about its being 
such a terrible night to be out in ; but the Doctor plead duty and his wife was satisfied. 
That delicate and noble hearted little woman would have gone out herself through 
that fearful storm to comfort the . sick and suffering and to cheer the dying if she had 
been called upon to do so. She felt proud that her husband was actuated by similar 
impulses of duty, as she thought. She never inquired where he was going, but 
helped him on with his leggings and wrapped thick, warm, woolen comforters around 
his neck and breast. The" Doctor then drew on his overcoat, put. on a tight-fitting fur 
cap, encased himself in a rubber water-proof over-all, drew on his gloves, and started 
out. 


20 


THE WANDERING JEW 


The keen, sharp wind and the sleet drove full in his face as he went along. He 
compressed his lips, bent his head forward and inclined it to one side, the better to 
pierce through the warring elements. Once he stumbled and almost fell, for the 
lamps were misty and dull and the night was pitch dark. He recovered himself and 
hurried on with rapid steps. He encountered no one. He saw no one on the streets. 
Not the rattling of a wheel or the tramp of a horse was to be heard in any direction. 
The street cars had been hauled into the sheds and the drivers were huddled around 
great roaring stoves at the stables. There were no carriages on the stands. Dim 
lights were burning in the shops and the clerks had retired to the counting-rooms and 
offices in the rear. For once, business had resigned its empire for a while, and a com- 
mon instinct to seek safety from the terrors of nature was in the ascendant in every 
breast. The dogs were crouching in their kennels at home or shivering on the shel- 
tered side of buildings or walls or wherever they could find protection ; not a bark 
was to be heard. Except the raging of the storm all was silent. 

After a hurried walk of about a quarter of an hour he reached the place of his 
destination. He pulled the door bell vigorously. The door was opened immediate- 
ly by a weather-beaten old woman and Dr. Plesington was admitted. She had evi- 
dently expected him, for as soon as he had given his name she at once showed him 
into the private business office of Mr. Isaacs, the financial agent of the old established 
London banking house. 

There he found Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Hearsey, seated at a large round table covered 
with books and papers and maps. 

“ A fearful night, Doctor,” remarked Mr. Hearsey, after Doctor Plesington had 
removed his wrappings and sat thawing before the fire. 

“ The good shepherd knows no cold or heat when the welfare of his flock 
demands his care,” said Isaacs with an irony which was not lost on the Reverend 
Divine. 

“ But come,” said Mr. Hearsey, who was anxious to proceed to business, “ this 
meeting was appointed to take into consideration the best ways and means of securing 
the passage of the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill.” 

Doctor Plesington. Will Mr. Hearsey please to state exactly where we stand 
to-night, in order that we may know precisely what has been done and what yet re- 
mains to be accomplished ? 

Mr. Hearsey. About twelve months ago, a few gentlemen conceived a noble 
enterprise. It was the patriotic idea of consolidating two proposed great lines of rail- 
road and of obtaining from the government a grant of public lands sufficient to build 
and equip both roads and put them in operation for the public welfare. 

Mr. Isaacs. The land provided to be granted is actually worth to-day three 
times all that the road will cost when finished and equiped ; ten years from now it 
will be worth, in good hard money, one hundred times as much. Do we risk such vast 
sums of money to secure the passage of a bill which will end in being merely a pub- 
lic benefaction ! 

Mr. Hearsey. That is all understood between us. 

Doctor Plesington. Certainly. 

Mr. Isaacs. There is no other human being in the house except ourselves and 
my old deaf housekeeper ; and as we are not talking to see ourselves reported in the 
morning papers, we might as well talk business in a business manner, and dispense 
with the popular slang of the politicians, editors and preachers. Will Mr. Hearsey 
proceed. 

Mr. Hearsey. A new company of corporators was accordingly constituted, 
composed of the principal men of both the other two companies, and these two compa- 
nies were formally dissolved. There exists now but one company, and 1 have the honor 
to be its President. We have been organized about ten months and at the beginning 
of the last session of this Congress, our bill, the Grand Consolidated Railway Land 
Grant Bill, was introduced by one of our friends in the House of Representatives 
and refered to the appropriate committee. Ever since the introduction of our bill, 
we have confined our energies to interesting members of Congress and other persons 
of influence in our scheme. 

Mr. Isaacs. I hold in my hand a book containing memoranda of the amount of 
funds* already expended in the prosecution of our plans. In most cases of payments, 
I hold vouchers to account for the funds disbursed. In some cases, you will readily 


IN AMERICA. 


21 


understand that to obtain such vouchers was impracticable, the persons receiving the 
money not wishing to give any written acknowledgments which might possibly show 
hereafter that they had been in any manner connected with our company. 

I have separated the accounts into two classes. The first class comprises all those 
accounts in which vouchers were given. The accounts have been generalized for con- 
venience in some instances, but the vouchers are ready for an exhibit in every specific 
payment. I will read the memoranda: 

CLASS A. 

WHERE VOUCHERS WERE GIVEN. 

1 

Paid to proprietors of New York Journals $298, 463 30 

“ “ Boston Journals 143, 755 48 

“ “ “ Phila. Journals 212, 346 12 

“ “ “ St. Louis Journals 176,042 50 

“ “ “ Chicago Journals 47, 376 25 

*“ “ “ Cincinnati Journals 175,000 50 

“ “ “ Press of other cities 247,853 00 


Total paid to the press $1, 426, 061 05 

2 

Paid to sundry Church Committees $76, 431 00 

“ * Synods 34, 246 04 

“ Conferences 123, 421 06 

“ Conventions 43, 344 75 

“ Young Men’s C. A 10,015 05 

“ Religious Press 50, 250 20 

“ Benevolent Societies 100, 000 00 


Total $437, 708 29 

3 

Paid to divers Play-wriglits $3, 000 00 

Circus Companies 5, 000 00 

“ Negro Minstrels 4, 000 Oo 

“ Popular Lecturers 9, 000 00 

« Women’s Rights Association 2,000 00 

“ Country Politicians 7,000 00 

“ Working Men’s Societies 2,500 00 


Total $32,500.00 

CLASS B. 

IN WHICH NO VOUCHERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN. 

1 

Paid Professional Journalists in Washington $37, 500 00 

“ Irregular Correspondents 3,500 00 


Total $40,000 00 

2 

Paid to members of the House $2, 520, 000 00 

3 

Paid to Senators $3, 240, 000 00 

4 

Paid to Judges $876, 000 0Q 


22 


THE WANDERING JEW 


5 

Paid to Department Officers $1,000,000 00 

6 

Paid to Confidential Clerks $25, 000 00 

7 

Paid to Female Lobbyists $40, 000 00 

Total amount without vouchers $7, 741,000, 00 

To sum up, we have paid to the press $1, 426, 061 05 

To Religious and benevolent societies 437, 708 29 

Miscellaneous 32, 500 00 

Sum total with vouchers $1, 896, 269 34 

Sum total without vouchers 7,741,006 00 

Grand total $9, 837, 269 34 


which is the precise amount which we have expended up to date in endeavoring to se- 
cure the passage of the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill. 

Doctor Plesington. I think I may say that the portion of the fund which was 
expended under my supervision has brought forth fruits. The moral sentiment of the 
Christian people of the country in regard to the bill is right. The churches are a unit 
in its advocacy. The roads open up new channels for Christian civilization. Churches 
and school houses will spring up in the wilderness ; the desert shall blossom as the 
rose, and new fields will be opened for the ministers of salvation bearing good tidings. 

Mr. Isaacs. A true Christian worker ! 

Mr. Hearsey. It was a part of my duty to regulate the press of the country. I 
have expended a heavy sum of money in this direction, but I am satisfied that it has 
not been misapplied. Though the influence of the newspapers in moulding public 
opinion has somewhat declined, yet their power is still enormous. None embarking 
in a grand enterprise like ours can afford to have the press arrayed against them. 
And the only way to secure it is to subsidize it. In my interviews with the gentlemen 
proprietors, I hinted at what seemed to me to be the extravagance of their charges. 
But they convinced me by a recital of prices paid in various similar but smaller trans- 
actions that their rates were not unreasonable for the services required. 

Mr. Isaacs. I bought up your members of Congress, judges, department 
officers, confidential clerks, popular lecturers, negro minstrels and comedians as 
cheap as they would sell. 

Mr. Hearsey. Our majority is sure in the House. 

Doctor Plesington. We only want the Senator with us to secure the speedy 
and certain passage of our measure. I do not see how he can hold out much longer. 

Mr. Isaacs. Do you know how to bring him around? 

Doctor Plesington. I must confess that I have brought every consideration to 
bear upon him, but without effect. 

Mr. Hearsey. He is the most remarkable man with whom I ever came in con- 
tact. Pride of opinion seems to be his ruling passion ; for the most magnificent prof- 
fers of reward delicately hinted fail to move him in the least degree. 

Mr. Isaacs. And yet he has his price if you can find out what it is. 

Mr. Hearsey. This is the last session of this Congress, and what is done must 
be done quickly. 

Doctor Plesington. All the work we have done will be lost if this Congress 
goes home without passing the bill. We shall have to begin anew with the next 
Congress. 

Mr. Isaacs. A way must be found to silence the Senator’s opposition, and it 
will be found. The bill will be passed this session — if not by one means, why then 
by another. But let us three here to-night come to a final understanding and agree- 
ment about our own mutual relations and interests in the enterprise after the bill has 
passed. State your understanding, Mr. Hearsey. 

Mr. Hearsey. The corporation of which I am the President is already organ- 


IN AMERICA. 


23 


ized and chartered. When the land is granted, it will be given to us finally, irrevo- 
cably and absolutely. The only condition attached is that we shall construct the road 
in a reasonable time. This, of course, we propose to do. A fund of ten million was 
to be raised to secure the necessary legislation. The London firm which you rep- 
resent advanced nine of the ten millions and we advanced one million. It was a pure 
venture. In consideration of the nine millions advanced by your firm I was spec ially 
instructed by the company to enter into a treaty with your firm in London through 
yourself as its agent. The terms of the treaty I am now authorized and instructed to 
make are the following : 

Ypu will advance all the funds necessary to build the road and put it in op- 
eration as required by the bill. You are to receive twelve per cent interest on the 
amount so advanced, and shall receive as a security a mortgage on every acre of the 
land granted by Congress. You are to receive in addition certificates of stock as the 
funds are paid in, sufficient to give you the control of the road. 

Doctor Plesington. I have been appointed in the nature of a trustee for the 
Company to join Mr. Hearsey in executing this contract. 

Mr. Isaacs. Gentlemen, the articles are ready for signature. I shall not fail 
to comply with my part of the stipulations. 

Mr. Isaacs produced the articles and handed them to Mr. Hearsey who read them 
aloud that Doctor Plesington might hear them. They had been properly framed and 
were entirely satisfactory. Mr. Hearsey signed and attached the seal of the corpora- 
tion which he had brought with him for the purpose. Doctor Plesington signed after 
him and then Isaacs signed last. Copies were signed in like manner and exchanged 
and the contract was executed. 


CHAPTER X. 


COMPENSATION. 

George Hales continued to visit Rose. He delayed a week after he made his first 
visit until he made his second one. But the time hung so heavily upon his hands and 
he became so nervous and restless thinking about her that he made two visits the 
second week, and three the week following that. He had but few acquaintances and 
no intimate friends and scarcely ever mingled in society. He now passed most of his 
evenings with Rose and was quite domesticated in her little parlor. 

And Rose, too, she would stand at the window in the evenings and watch to see 
his form pass the gas-light on the corner. And she loved to hear his footsteps in 
the hall and to open the door for him and welcome him in. 

Rose continued to translate Italian stories and Hales paid her the little wages 
agreed upon punctually at the end of every week, which was enough to pay her lit- 
tle.rent ; and as she did not eat much more than a bird and only kept one fire in a 
tiny parlor stove and did her own house-work, the price paid by Madame Zarowski 
for the picture she had bought on her first visit would supply one of her simple tastes 
with everything she needed for a month. Her wardrobe was well furnished and the 
work that Madame Zarowski had given her would keep her profitably employed for 
an indefinite time. 

But the evenings which she and Hales passed together were not entirely devoted 
to Italian literature. They would have the most interesting possible conversations ; 
sometimes Hales would read her selections from the best philosophical literature of 
the day and follow it up with explanations and illustrations, and sometimes he would 
read her one of his own nervously written logical articles on some social question, or 
one of his novellettes and ask her for suggestions ; sometimes Rose would sing him. 
one of those sweet songs of Southern France and accompany it with the music of her 
cithern. And then Hales would forget for a moment the inexorable chain of circum- 
stances which bound him down and surrender himself to the visions of his mystical; 
imagination and wander away among the golden temples of the future, for which he 
was unconsciously helping to lay the foundations. 

Occasionally on fine days the pair would start out early in the morning and pass 


24 


THE WANDERING JEW 


the day among the hills which overlook the dome and the broad flowing river ; and at 
noon they would sit down together on the trunk of a fallen tree, near a clear strong 
spring which bubbled up among the gnarled roots of a poplar, and make their simple 
repast. There were some fine ladies who lived in fine houses across the street who 
knew Rose well by sight, who envied the two their youth, their beauty and their 
love, when they saw them start out on their excursions, and who would gladly have 
exchanged places with Rose, as she went tripping along with a little basket on her 
arm and looking so radiant and happy. 

Hales was rapidly beginning to look upon Rose’s parlor as his own proper 
home. Already he had brought some of his books and papers and left them there, 
and some evenings he would sit there and write, while Rose would read or sew. 
Upon these evenings Rose would always prepare sandwiches and a cup of coflee, and 
give II ties permission to smoke a cigar. 

The relation, though innocent, existing between them, would not have been ap- 
proved by the Reverend Doctor Charles Plesington. That gentleman’s happiness, it 
is true, would have been complete on earth had he occupied a much nearer relation 
to Madame Zarowski. But then society had its proprieties. 

Meanwhile, Hales and Rose were profoundly ignorant and indifferent as to what 
society might think or say about them. Rose had never been trained in its ways to 
begin with, and Hales had been fighting shams aud falsehoods all his life. They 
owed society nothing and asked none of its favors. They were a law unto themselves 
and constituted a society of their own and never dreamed that they were bold and de- 
fiant or heroic or anything of the kind. They followed the* laws and impulses of nat- 
ural affection and of their own hearts. They loved each other and were happy. So- 
ciety might go its way. As long as they could compel it to permit them to exist, it 
would do so ; when they could no longer compel it, it would leave them — to stave ; as 
it had millions of times before left the old, the sick, the decrepit and the infirm to 
starve, when they could no longer toil for it. 

The good spirits held companionship with Hales and Rose. Their hearts were 
pure and their souls were at peace. Their days were full of joy, and at night their 
sleep was calm and sweet. In their dreams they would meet each other again in the 
Spirit Land and their spirits would blend and mingle there in that unity which com- 
pletes the soul and perfects its happiness on the other side of the dark river of Death. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE REPORT. 

About a fortnight after the meeting of Doctor Plesington, Mr. Hearsey and Mr. 
Isaacs to discuss the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill, a man enveloped 
in a great fur coat, and wearing a tall rimless fur cap, opened the iron gate and passed 
up the marble steps into the porch of Madame Zarowski’s house and rang the bell. 
It was about dusk, and the face of the man was almost entirely concealed by the great 
cap and the muffler of his coat. He might have been an artist, or a peddler of the bet- 
ter class, for he carried two elegant bronze statuettes, one under each of his arms, 
which were folded on his breast. 

It was no other than Isaacs, the Jew, who had come to pay the Madame a visit, 
and, for certain reasons of his own, desired that it should be kept secret. 

He handed his cap and gloves to the servant who opened the door, with an air 
and tone of authority and ordered the servant to announce him. 

He merely intended to give Madame Zarowski notice, so that he might not in- 
trude on her privacy, for he followed the servant up and entered the reception room, 
where Rose had met the Senator, at the same time with the servant. 

“ The compliments of the season, and how goes it with her ladyship ; has she 
brought the haughty statesman to her feet or has the pretty little Gipsy stolen him 
soul and body away ? Matters of greater interest have detained me or I should have 


IN AMERICA. 


25 


been here sooner. Speak and tell me quick what you have done. Time presses. I 
have much to accomplish yet to-night,” began the Jew in a hurried and impetuous 
manner and insolent tone. 

“ I wish you could cease to mock me, Isaacs ; my situation is sufficiently distress- 
ing without the addition of your heartless irony,” replied the lady. 

“ Irony ! my dear Irene,” continued the Jew, ‘‘the good angels will smile at your 
blessed work ; you have coupled two loving bosoms ; the Senators affection for the 
Gipsy is so pure and warm ; so entirely unselfish ; he ! he ! so solely devoted to the 
happiness of its object, eh ?” 

Madame Zarowski remained silent. 

“ Did the Senator meet her here.” 

“He did.” 

“ Did she inflame his passion ?” 

“She did” 

“ What was his manner ?” 

“ Hash and impetuous.” 

“Fool !” 

“ But she repelled his advances.” 

“ Only fans his desire.” 

“ The interview was brief ; she became offended at his familiarity and took her 
leave before he had an opportunity for any any further gallantry.” 

“Was the baggage not over-powered with your patronage and the splendor of 
your establishment?” 

“ On the contrary ; she appeared quite unmoved.” 

“ She has visited you since, and met him ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“With what results?” 

“He took care not to repeat his first mistake and restrained his impatience.” 

“ Had his passion cooled since the first rebuff*?” 

“ No ; it was fiercer than ever.” 

“ And she ?” 

“Was utterly indifferent to him.” 

“ She is young ; perhaps she has a lover ?” 

“ She has.” 

“Who is he?” 

“One Hales, a writer and journalist.” 

The Jew paused for a moment and then resumed his interrogations. 

“ She does not suspect you ?” 

“No.” 

“She will continue her visits ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And the Senator?” 

“ Will of course do the same as long as he meets hei here.” 

It required all of Madame Zarowski’s strength — and she was strong — to undergo 
this terrible ordeal. Though cold and selfish and though she could be cruel when 
her plans required it, she was not naturally wicked and never inflicted pain out of 
pure love of cruelty. The Jew had taken care to make her feel most keenly the degra- 
dation which the task he had imposed upon her brought with it. Not satisfied with 
this, he had laid bare her own fatal passion for the Senator and made it the object of 
ridicule. He had trampled her in the dust and mocked at her humiliation. Madame 
Zarowski was prostrate in the dust before him. She was like the leopardess whose 
fierce eyes would gleam and blaze in the absence of her keeper, but which would 
crouch and cringe iii terror when its keeper entered the cage with his red-hot iron 
bars. 

“ You promised one day to set me free, Isaacs,” said Madame Zarowski after a 
moment’s silence. 

“ Yes; when I have no further use for you I shall do so,” replied the Jew. 

“ I have served you faithfully,” she pleaded. 

“ And with good reason,” replied the Jew ; “most women would prefer your rank 
and your life of ease and luxury and the privilege of eating my bread and of giving 
out to the world without fear of contradiction that this magnificently furnished house 


26 


THE WANDERING JEW 


which is my property was their own, as you do — I say most women would prefer this, 
to being published as I could publish you, and to take the final plunge from 
the work-house to the Water street dance-houses and the pauper’s burying groud ; eh?” 

A death.like pallor came over Madame Zarowski’s face but her nerves did not fail 
her. She made no further plea or protest. She was silent and calm. 

“ Hear me, Irene. ” said the Jew, “ spare no art or intrigue to subdue Rose to the 
wishes of the Senator. Continue to keep yourself informed through my servants who 
attend you of all her movements, as you have done. Entice her with follies and fash- 
ions. Encourage in her a love of display and of dissipating amusements. Excite her 
vanity and supply her freely with all the means necessary for its largest gratification. 
As she is more beautiful than other women, create in her the ambition to outshine 
them in the world of fashion. For these purposes you may draw to an unlimited ex- 
tent on the bank account placed to your credit. If you succeed in accomplishing this, 
she lies helpless and powerless at your disposal. Ambition, luxury and fashion will 
soon drive that miserable scribbler Hales from her thoughts. For the gratification of 
these passions, which will have become a second nature, she will be dependent upon 
you for the means. If you withhold them, you will dry up the sources of her life and 
being. Then the sacrifice will be ready and the dead old artist’s pretty daughter will 
play her part in the comedy entitled, ‘‘The Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant 
Bill. ” Meanwhile, manage to bring the two together as frequently as possible and 
advise with the Senator as to the best method of prosecuting his suit. The fact that 
you love him yourself will better enable you to explain to him those secret arts 
and influences, which are most likely to succeed in this combined attack of both of 
you on the heart of your proposed rival. And to quicken your wits and energies I 
give you my promise that when you have accomplished this task and secured the 
Senator for the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill I will let you go.” 

Having said these words and muffled his face, Isaacs left her abruptly as he had 
come, without waiting a reply. He did not carry the bronze statuettes away with 
him. 

“ She has a lover,” he muttered to himself as he went along. “ I know him, a 
dangerous man and not without influence on the Senator. There is another hand 
needed in this business. I want one more partner and I know where to find him.” 

Pursuing these meditations, Isaacs reached his chamber, and forthwith proceeded 
to unlock a secret closet, take out the great greasy overcoat, the battered cylinder and 
ragged red cravat, the huge breast pin and grizzled wig and whiskers, and packed 
them away in his valise. 


CHAPTER XII. 


SPIRITUALISM. 

The evening after Isaacs visit, Madame Zarowski was favored with a call from 
Doctor Plesington. 

Neither this gentleman or Mr. Hearsey knew anything about the relation exist- 
ing between Isaacs and Madame Zarowski. This was a profound secret, known only 
to the two persons themselves and to the confidential servants that Isaacs had 
placed with Madame Zarowski to act as spies upon her movements. In fact they had 
been introduced at Mrs. Hearsey ’s party as though they really were entire strangers 
to each other, and both had united to maintain the delusion. 

When the Doctor’s name was announced, Madame Zarowski sent him word to be 
kind enough to wait a few minutes in the ante-room until she was prepared to receive 
him. 

She kept him waiting full an hour. And though the ante-room was warm and 
comfortable and well provided with files of newspapers, reports, periodicals and quite 
a variety of books, Doctor Plesington began to grow nervous before the time of his 
probation expired, especially when he thought of his ridiculous situation and the 
amusement it would afford the public should it become generally known. 


IN AMERICA. 


27 


While her admirer was waiting without, Madame Zarowski was finishing up the 
labors of the day. 

She had before her two books ; one large one and one small one. At the head of 
every left hand page in the larger one was written in a bold, full hand, the name of a 
member of Congress. Then after a vacant line the name of a female was written in 
a small fine hand in red ink on the margin outside of the perpendicular red line on 
the left. On the body of the page, and commencing at the name written on the mar- 
gin, were notes. Then came a vacant space and another female name on the margin 
and notes as before. And so on following. The two pages allotted to each member 
were nearly all filled, and under many names the two pages were not sufficient, and ad- 
ditional leaves had been gummed in to furnish the necessary space. The notes re- 
lated to the particular kind of influence that each lady was to bring to bear upon the 
member whose name stood at the head of the page and to the results which had been 
accomplished by these efforts. 

The smaller book contained the names of the members and the ladies arranged in 
the same manner but without the notes. Opposite each lady’s name were dates and 
figures, representing sums of money which had been paid them or presents which 
they had received. Entries in this book would run thus: 

lone St. Clare, Dec. 21, 18 — , $100 00. 

Lilly De Vere, Jan. 5, 18 — , Velvets. 

Maud Melville, Jan. 10, 18 — , Diamonds. 

The names were fictitious to avoid exposure in case the book should be mislaid 
or stolen, but they all represented real persons. Doctor Plesington had a similar rec- 
ord at home, showing the amount of money he had expended to “ produce the grand 
moral sentiment of the Christian world in favor of the Grand Consolidated Railway 
Land Grant Bill.” So had Mr. Hearsey. But neither of these two co-laborers with 
Mr. Isaacs supposed for a moment that Madame Zarowski was similarly occupied. 
These two sagacious men of the world took her to be exactly what she gave herself 
out to be — a wealthy and fashionable lady of American birth and education who had 
married a Polish count, spent much of her time in Europe, had lost her husband and 
who devoted that part of her time which was not given to society to literature, and who 
proposed to spend the winter in the city for the express purpose of gathering the ma- 
terial for a volume she intended to publish, which was to be entitled “ Recollections of 
a Winter in Washington.” 

When Madame Zarowski had finished up her entries and notes, she locked up her 
books carefully in an elegant rose-wood secretary, put the key in hei pocket and 
opened the door and said, “ Doctor Plesington, come.” 

Doctor Plesington was a generous liver and possessed a robust and vigorous con- 
stitution and was not easily thrown off' his guard ; but the sweet and gentle manner in 
which Madame Zarowski had uttered the words, “Doctor Plesington, come;” taken 
in connection with the fact that she had opened the door herself instead of ringing for 
a servant, caused a tingling sensation to quiver over the surface of his nerves. 

Madame Zarowski might not have been expected to have been in a very gracious 
mood towards a lover to whom she was indifferent and who really annoyed her with 
his attentions, so soon after she had entirely lost the Senator and been interviewed by 
Isaacs. But she was a prudent woman and had been thinking. Her situation was a des- 
perate one. She was completely at the mercy of Isaacs, and did not know how soon 
she might need a friend. Upon Doctor Plesington she could rely so long as she gave 
him a little hope and maintained her own high position in the world of fashion ; so 
she relaxed her manner towards him and became gracious. 

Doctor Plesington entered in his oiliest manner and composed himself in a great 
fauteuil. 

“ Some time since I have had the pleasure of seeing you, Doctor,” began Madame 
Zarowski, with a deprecatory air, as if vexed at the Doctor’s neglect ; and yet in a tone 
of such mingled sweetness and sadness that the Doctor’s heart fairly dissolved in an 
ecstasy. 

“ My dear Zarowski — my dear Madame I mean — ” 

“No formulas among true friends, my dear Doctor,” said Madame re-assuring 
him in the kindest manner. 

“ Well, then, my dear Zarowski,” said the amorous Divine, drawing the fauteuil 
nearer to the sofa where Madame rather reclined than sat, “ your own merits more 


28 


THE WANDERING JEW 


than tne commanding position you occupy in our society has frequently given rise to 
a wish on my part for your more intimate personal acquaintance.” 

Which was reciprocated on the part of your humble servant,” replied Madame 
Zarowski, with a languishing look. 

The fauteuil approached again and the dialogue continued. 

Dr. Plesington. Two considerations concurred to prevent the fulfilment of my 
wishes. First. I feared that among your numerous friends and admirers you would 
find so many whose pursuits in life, not being so grave as mine, could with propriety 
entertain one of your happy and joyous nature in a manner tvhich, while eminently 
proper lor them, would not, in the eyes of the world, be consistent with the dignity 
of my calling. Second. I was aware that you devoted that portion of your time 
which was not given to the discharge of your social duties to literary pursuits ; and 
I was not disposed to trespass on your valuable time. 

Zarowski. But I am not actually engaged in writing now. I am merely gath- 
ering the materials for my book, which, as you know, I intend to call u Recollections 
of a Winter in Washington.” So if my friends desire to aid me in my work, they 
will visit me and gossip with me as frequently as they conveniently can. 

Again the fauteuil drew nearer. 

Doctor Plesington could express himself forcibly and could deal in plausible logic 
when he thought it expedient to lay aside the oratorico-pulpit style ; for he was a man 
of the world. Upon this occasion he thought it expedient to do so, after having made 
a few flourishes of the clerical school at the beginning. 

He proceeded. 

u Your book will certainly be an interesting one if its contents meet the bill on 
the title page.” 

That will depend upon the extent and interest of the author’s experience,” said 
Madame Zarowski. 

Dr. Plesington. Will you treat the subject generally or confine yourself to a 
few principal topics ? 

Zarowski. Principally the latter. I shall first take a brief and comprehensive 
view and then give particular attention to those points which would be most likely to 
interest a stranger visiting our shores. There will be nothing specially Washington- 
ian about the book ; I might equally well have substituted the name Boston or New 
York. But I happened to be here and so I said Washington. 

Dr. Plesington. What particular feature ot American civilization would you 
single out as the one which would strike the educated foreigner with the greatest 
force ? 

Zarowski. The religious element. 

Dr. Plesington. You surprise me. 

Zarowski. That may well be. The religious spirit exerts less influence on our 
professional religious teachers than on any other class of persons. 

Dr. Plesington. Be kind enough to explain. 

Zarowski. The connection between Church and State existing in Europe creates 
the same hostility against the former that naturally exists against the latter. The masses 
of the people look upon both as acting in concert and mutually supporting each other in 
pressing them down. A feeling somewhat akin, to this exists in this country towards 
our fashionable churches. Here this a mere prejudice. These churches are merely 
the creatures of society, so-called, and neither exert an influence on government or 
on the people, outside of their own limited circle. Their best efforts are always due 
to the religious spirit which presses upon them from the outside. The churches clung 
to slavery to the last, and yielded when they could no longer resist, to the principles 
of a philosophy in exact opposition to the ground teachings of their formal confessions. 

Dr. Plesington. The churches received the credit of emancipation at all events. 

Zarowski. To show that they did not merit it, it is only necessary to note that 
they utterly repudiate the principles upon which abolition was waged, and which 
alone can justify the abolition. The condition of slavery is relative. Absolute slavery 
never did exist in this country. The slave did have rights which his master was 
bound to respect, and that, too, by the laws of every slave commonwealth. Masters 
could not take the lives of their slaves, and some have been hanged for doing so. The 
black slaves were more enslaved than the white slaves. That was all. The masters 
of the black slaves commanded their labor without any compensation. The masters 


IN AMERICA. 


29 


of the white slaves command their labor for an inadequate compensation. The only 
difference between the two classes consists in the degree and not in the nature of the 
enslavement. If the churches were honest, they would advocate the emancipation of 
the race on precisely the same principles that the abolition of slavery was demanded — 
human rights — but they do not. On the contrary, with an ignorance equal to their 
inconsistency, they appeal to the rabble and lead them on in hurling the cries of 
“socialism” and “infidelity” against the radical thinkers of the day who are merely 
repeating the doctrines proclaimed in Judea over eighteen hundred years ago. 

Dr. Plesington. But the outside religious spirit of which you speak possesses no 
forms through which to express itself. I mean it is not organized. 

Zarowski. If it has no organization it has vital force, and organization will nat- 
urally take place at the proper time. As to forms, it expresses itself through all forms 
and is now struggling for a fuller and a freeer expression. If the churches have or- 
ganization, that is all they do have, except their money ; for their fires are long burnt 
out and only ashes and dead coals remain. 

Dr. Plesington. I suppose you regard spiritualism as one of the forms through 
which this religious spirit expresses itself? 

Zarowski. I do not regard spiritualism as a form at all. It is a sentiment. It 
cannot be put down with printers’ ink in thirty-nine, or in any other number of 
articles. 

Dr. Plesington. But if spiritualism mean anything at all, surely language, 
which is the expression of thought, can convey some conception, however limited, of 
what it is. 

Zarowski. Spiritualism is a profound truth. As I stated, it is a sentiment and 
cannot be conveyed in symbols, either of sounds or of letters, which are only appro- 
priate to represent definite conceptions. What is soul? What is sense? When 
you define these, I will explain what I mean when I say that the essence of spiritual- 
ism consists in the union it makes between soul and sense. The heathen religions ig- 
nored soul ; the Christian religion ignores sense. Spiritualism recognizes both. 

Doctor Plesington. In that view of spiritualism I find it ineffably sweet. 

Madame Zarowski languished in the corner of the sofa. Her head had reclined 
backward and reposed softly on the silk covered cushion, exposing her full round neck 
and affording a glimpse of a dainty bit of her bosom of snow. The flowing folds of 
her robe were gathered up on the sofa and a pair of charming little feet, encased in 
bright brown silk stockings and slippers of blue satin, peeped out, exhibiting a pair 
of ankles of faultless mould and beauty. One arm rested on the back of the sofa and 
the other was under her neck. 

Doctor Plesington hitched the great fauteuil nearer to the sofa and continued : 

“ Considered from this standpoint, spiritualism is the natural religion of humanity. 
The union of soul and sense ! There is a coarseness and brutality inseparably con- 
nected in the average mind with the enjoyments of sense, which places moral senti- 
ment in direct conflict with the sweet operations of nature’s laws. It is the province 
of spiritualism to end this conflict by harmonizing the two opposing elements. With 
spiritualism, the Absolute is the Real, and the most ravishing delights of sense m ike 
up the highest and finest joys of the soul. Spiritualism sees no state or condition, 
present or future, where these two elements are not combined to constitute the indi- 
vidual unit of personal conscious existence. The one supplements the other and 
makes it round and complete, which by itself is only a fragment of the whole. To 
sever this union is to mutilate and degrade humanity ; to enjoy both in their fullest 
extent together is its chief excellence. As the longings and desires of Soul and Sense 
cannot be suppressed by arbitrary laws and enactments, spiritualism teaches that true 
manhood and true womanhood will disregard the police regulations of society and 
put themselves in harmony with nature, where alone true happiness is to be enjoyed. 
But these speculations are not for the vulgar herd. They would be misunderstood 
and misapplied. And above all things, would it be improper for a clergyman like 
myself, officiating in one of the most respectable of churches, to give expression to any 
such opinions. But my dear Zarowski, we are the Gymnosophists and have an esote- 
ric doctrine for ourselves and an exoteric one which we give to the rabble. The vice 
of spiritualism is that it reveals the secrets of our order.” 

Doctor Plesington drew the fauteuil quite close to Madame Zarowski and rested 
his arm upon that end of the sofa where her head was reclining. 


30 


THE WANDERING JEW 


“ How often” he said, u have I felt even in the moments of my highest exalta- 
tion, the want of something to render my satisfaction complete and full. I have 
watched at sunset the changing colors die away as they fell on the landscape of hill 
and dale and river and ravine and lake and plain and forest. I have stood upon the 
shores of the boundless ocean and watched the sails of the distant ships ; I have stood 
among the solitudes of the mountain peaks and viewed the sombre and solemn gran- 
deur of nature ; I have been transported from earth on the enrapturing strains of 
music; I have watched the white cranes suspended high in heaven, slowly winging 
their way to sunny Southern lands, but amid all these scenes and emotions the heart 
was not yet satisfied. Something was wanting still.” 

“ But these moments of combined spiritual and sensual delight are of brief dura- 
tion, my dear Plesington,” she resumed, with a wearied look and tone, “ and we must 
descend from our supernal heights, and come down and perform our several tasks in 
the world of practical business life.” 

“ Only to renew our strength for similar enjoyments in the future,” observed the 
Doctor in the true spirit of the Epicurean philosophy. 

“ For instance, in the matter of the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant 
Bill,” remarked Madame Zarowski with a significant smile. 

Doctor Plesington looked startled. He had been so deeply interested with Hear- 
sey and Isaacs about the bill, and so deeply interested with Madame Zarowski in af- 
fairs of love, that he had never connected her image with the Grand Consolidated Rail- 
way Land Grant Bill, in all his thoughts. 

Madame Zarowski saw his surprise and went on to explain. 

“ It ought not to appear surprising that a lady of such extensive acquaintance as 
I have in the city, and possessing fair powers of observation, should know something 
about this gigantic scheme. At Mrs. Hearsev’s party, I observed her husband en- 
gaged in earnest conversation with a Mr. Isaacs, a financial agent of a house in London, 
and with the Senator. I suspected from the fact that the Senator is the only barrier to 
the passage of the bill — of which fact I am informed by some of my numerous lady 
visitors who know much more of the matter than I do — that Messrs. Isaacs and Hear- 
sey were endeavoring to overcome his objections. And then, judging from your intimacy 
with Mr. Hearsey, and your active support of the bill in your own circle, and I might 
add,” continued the Madame, with a roguish cast of her eyes upon the Doctor, “ from 
your naughty attentions to Mrs. Llearsey — ” 

“ My dearest Zarowski ! I protest that I never — ” 

“ that you yourself were somehow interested in the enterprise. Now, I will par- 
don your infidelity to me.” 

“ Dearest — ■” 

upon on condition, and that is that you tell me all you know about the bill.” 

“Well, then, my love, since you will not permit me to exculpate myself from a 
suspicion which is as groundless as it — ” 

“ Not one word more on that subject. My jealousy is easily aroused. Proceed 
with what you have to say, and I shall try and bury in oblivion the sad memory of 
your faithlessness.” 

After such a spontaneous gush of affection and devotion, Doctor Plesington could 
not do less than open up the innermost chambers and recesses of his confidence. 

He recapitulated in detail all that had been said and done at the meeting be- 
tween Hearsey, Isaacs and himself, at Isaacs’ house, down to the execution of the con- 
tract and the exchange of the papers. 

“ But,” he added in a low voice, drawing close up to Madame Zarowski, “ Hear 
sey and myself are dissatisfied with Isaacs, and have determined to oust him when 
the proper time arrives.” 

“ What is the cause of your dissatisfaction ?” 

“ Isaacs is an insolent and grasping Jew. His manner is dictatorial and insult- 
ing, and according to the arrangement, he is to have all, and we are to be mere pen- 
sioners upon his bounty.” 

“ But how can you possibly oust him after he has advanced the sum agreed upon, 
and the contract has been executed?” inquired Madame Zarowski with increasing in- 
terest. 

“In every great bill,” said the Doctor, “ which has been thoroughly canvassed, 
there is always a greater or less period of time, which necessarily intervenes between 


IN AMERICA. 


31 


the point when it becomes absolutely certain that the bill will pass and the point of 
time when the bill actually does pass. Do you understand ?” 

“ Perfectly well,” answered Madame Zarowski, listening with the most intense in- 
terest and eagerness. 

“ It is during that critical interval that we intend to strike the blow. Mr. Hear- 
sey will shortly go to New York, where he will see a majority of the directors of the 
company, and explain matters to them. He will remain there mostly for the present, 
while I shall remain in Washington, to looK after things here. As soon as the success 
of the bill becomes a certainty, 1 shall telegraph to Mr. Hearsey in cypher, to call the 
directors together, and have tlm contract with Isaacs cancelled.” 

“But can that be legally done?” asked Madame Zarowski. 

“ Undoubtedly answered Dr. Plesington, “ there is no difficulty whatever of 
that kind in the way. Either party may withdraw from the agreement before the bill 
has passed, upon payment to the other party with interest, all the money advanced by 
that party. Our company was entirely without means when this scheme was inaugu- 
rated, and we were compelled to go to the Jews. When the certainty of the success 
of the bill is ascertained, we can readily raise the nine millions which Isaacs has ad- 
vanced, and pay him off, and get rid of him immediately.” 

“ Do you anticipate any difficulty in carrying out this plan ?” inquired Madame 
Zarowski again. 

“No serious difficulty,” replied the Doctor. “Of course, Isaacs will be kept in 
profound ignorance of our intentions ; otherwise, he would defeat the bill and ruin 
the individual directors with his charge of the nine millions in gold coin, and his ex- 
orbitant interest, likewise payable in specie.” 

“ Will you not be required by law to give Isaacs due notice of your intentions to 
withdraw from the contract before the passage of the bill ?” continued Madame Zar- 
owski, for further information. 

“The law will be observed to the letter,” said Doctor Plesington. “A notice 
will be made out and placed in the hands of responsible witnesses, who will keep copies 
and be able to testify that they placed it in the post-office in ample time for Isaacs to 
have received it before the bill was passed.” 

“But then,” said Madame Zarowski, “you defeat your own purpose in giving 
Isaacs the notice, before the passage of the bill.” 

“ Not if the post-office clerk forgets to send it,” whispered Doctor Plesington in Mad- 
ame Zarowski’s ear. 


CHAPTEE XIII. 


WANTED A PARTNER. 

About eleven o’clock at night, a few days after the conversation recorded in the 
last chapter, a shabby-lookir.g individual might have been seen crossing City Hall place 
in the direction of Chatham street. He wore an immense thread-bare overcoat, lined and 
stitched from top to bottom. A red cravat, ornamented with a huge brass pin, was 
tied round his neck and he had on a cylinder hat which had been black in time, but 
which was of a dingy red color now and badly battered. He carried in each hand an 
oil daub, cased in a gilt wooden frame. One would have taken him for a Jew with 
pictures to sell, had such an one been near enough to see his coarse grizzly hair and 
note the outlines of his face. . 

He entered Chatham street. The pawnbrokers were doing a driving business, 
but the pedestrian with the pictures did not stop to offer his wares to them. Bum- 
sellers were busy and concert-saloons blazed with gas and tawdry finery, but Isaacs, 
for the sagacious reader has doubtless penetrated his disguise, did not stop to propose 
a sale. He passed, without stopping, all the low, dark, foully-smelling shops, where 
still filthier and fouler creatures vended imitation jewelry, old clothes, cheap cloth- 
ing and stolen goods. He emerged from Chatham street into the square, where he 
paused for a moment as if hesitating which course to take, and then proceeded up the 
great thoroughfare of the Bowery. 


32 


THE WANDERING JEW 


He had not gone far when he dived down a flight of steps and entered a low, nar- 
row bar-room in the cellar. 

There was a dozen or more customers and loafers of both sexes, and three or four 
ragged children standing in front of the bar. In the corner behind the counter stood 
a double-barrelled gnn> and lying on one of the shelves was a twelve-inch revolver. 
The bar-tender, a great red whiskered man with a pock-marked face, was serving the 
vilest whiskey and gin at five cents a glass. 

Isaacs passed his pictures to the bar-tender, who took them with a deferential 
look, and then after a hurried survey of the miserable wretches around him, he opened 
a green baize side door in the bar-room, paid ten cents to the doorkeeper who sat in 
the hall, and passed through another door into the <fance-room. 

The hall was some forty or fifty feet long by about half that width. It was dimly 
lighted. At the opposite end from which he entered were three musicians, a tall, 
bald headed man with base viol, a girl of about thirteen with a harp and a boy of 
about sixteen, dressed in an old coat of black cotton velvet and a pair of smeared white 
corduroy pants, with a violin. All around the walls were ranged rough wooden 
benches, which were occupied by such of the visitors as were fortunate enough to se- 
cure them during the intervals between the dances. There were from twenty to thirty 
females present, ranging from thirteen years of age to twenty or thirty — it was 
hard to tell — participating in the amusement. There was not one among them all 
that had the slightest vestige of beauty or freshness about her. It was impossible to 
approximate with accuracy the ages of any of them except the youngest, and the ages 
of these were only to be judged by their size. They all looked care-worn and haggard, 
and bloated and pimpled from the excessive use of intoxicating liquors. The faces of 
some of them were sallow and sunken, and their eyes large and lustreless ; these were 
the victims of consumption. Most of them were under the influence of drink, and 
some were noisy and boisterous and obscene in their language and gestures. They 
were dressed in every variety of costume, according to their individual tastes and 
means. Some wore soiled and discolored tights ; others had donned the garb of a 
Scotch highlander ; some were flower girls and others gipseys. They had on second- 
hand laces and ribbons, faded and stained ; cast-oil frippery and finery and cheap jew- 
elry, either stolen or purchased from the shops in Chatham street. They were whiten- 
ed and bedizened with powders and paint, and those who had any, freely exposed 
their dirty, yellow bosoms. Those who had none made up for the deficiency by a dis- 
play of still coarser attractions. 

The men were more in number than the women, but they were constantly coming 
and going, while the women remained, unless escorted away by male companions. 
The men were for the most part well-known to the police and were thieves of every 
class and gradation. They bore the marks of extreme debauchery. They were filthy 
in person and meanly clad and emitted foul odors of rum and tobacco. 

Isaacs stood for a few moments in the heated, crowded room, filled with pestilen- 
tial vapors, and took the men one by one in review, as if he were on the look-out 
for some one he expected to find. 

The result of his examination seemed to be unsatisfactory, for when the signal 
was given for the dancers to take their places, he threaded his way through the crowd 
to the opposite end of the hall to a small bar in the corner near the musicians, where 
the visitors were supplied with liquors. He passed a few hurried words in an under- 
tone with the bar-tender and received from him a key, with which he opened a side 
door and entered a hall. The hall was narrow and about thirty feet long and dimly 
lighted at the other end by a single jet of gas. On either side of the wall was a row of 
cabinets, each cabinet about five feet wide and seven feet long. The bar-keeper in 
the dancing hall kept the keys. Some of the cabinets were occupied. The air was 
close, and foul with the sickening smells of corruption and disease. 

Isaacs passed through this hall, and opened with a key which lie took from his 
pocket a heavy door, very strongly secured and locked in a peculiar manner. 

He entered a small room and locked the door securely behind him. A dim jet 
was burning feebly on the side of the wall. One would have taken the room he had 
just entered for a junk shop, to judge from the character of its contents but for the 
fact that it had no windows, or doors, or any visible place of ingress or egress, except 
the massive door through which Isaacs had entered. He listened instinctively for a 
moment. All was still, except the faint noise of the dancing and music. He then 


IN AMERICA. 


33 


sprung open a false panel and passed through the aperture. He replaced the panel 
after him, and descended a rickety, spiral stair- way. It was pitch dark. He landed 
on a stone pavement below, and thrust his arm as far as he could reach through a 
grated iron door which stopped his way. hie found andgrasped aknob, or handle hang- 
ing by the wall inside. This he pulled three separate times. The first time, he 
gave a long, steady pull ; the second time, two short, quick jerks, with a moment’s in- 
terval between them ; the third time, he gave three jerks, and in rapid succession. 
All was as dark and silent as the grave. Presently a lamp appeared at the other end 
of a long, vaulted subterranean passage. A moment afterwards, a man appeared, and 
came towards the door where Isaacs stood. “ Sharp on time, old Israel,” said the 
man unlocking the door and admitting him. 

“ Yes, yes,” said the Jew, “ pusiness is pusiness, unt time is monish.” 

One more passage traversed, and one more door opened and passed and closed 
behind him, and the Jew found the end of his route. 

There was a small, red-hot stove in the vault or cell, whatever it might be 
called, with a kettle of water simmering on the top of it. In the center of the cave 
or den, stood a plain, round deal table, where piled up in a promiscuous heap among well- 
filled bottles and decanters, were lemons, cigars, sugar, silks, laces, chains, watches 
and jewelry. A pack of cards lay on the table, at which two villainous looking fel- 
lows with shaggy eyebrows and gray-black whiskers, were seated. 

“I vants to see dis shentlemans vot you calls Mister Nobby Dick, by myself, a 
leettle whiles,” said Isaacs, breaking the object of his mission, in the genuine Israeli- 
tish tone and accent. 

Isaacs’ conductor nodded to the two men at the table, and they withdrew through 
a dark aperture in the rough stone wall, into a passage or vault, leading in a nearly 
opposite direction to the one by which Isaacs had entered. When the sounds of their 
footsteps had died away in the distance, Isaacs closed the thick, sheet iron door 
through which they had made their exit, and continued: “ You knows me, Mister 
Nobby Dick, and you gifs me one peeps yesterdays, on Shatum streets, unt tells me to 
come and see you here to-nights.” 

‘‘Well, old Israel, come to swindle me out of my hard earned merchandise again, 
I suppose ? ” said Nobby Dick. 

I buys noting from you dis long times ; I see you not also dis long times ; I 
have no pusiness mit you dis long times ; once I buys one vatch from you, Mister 
Nobby Dick, eh?” . 

“ Yes,” said this worthy, “a heavy, fine gold chronometer ; you paid me ten dol- 
lars for it; it was worth two hundred and fifty.” 

“ Then why you no sells him to somebody else? But I buys no more tings, Mis- 
ter Nobby Dick,” said the Jew, slowly shaking his head. 

“What do you mean,” roared Nobby Dick in a deep and threatning voice and tone. 

“ Mebbe you don’t know who dat vatch belongs to, eh ?” 

Nobby Dick gave a start. 

“ Dat vatch gets me into droubles some days,” said the Jew forlornly, “and you 
pays me back my monish ven I lose dat vatch.” 

Nobby Dick jumped from his seat and was about to take the Jew by the throat, 
when that indefatigable man of business asked him to wait just one moment, and hear 
what he had to say, before he was strangled. 

Nobby Dick desisted and the Jew resumed: 

“De man vat owned dat vatch is dead. De harbor police find his body in de 
vater. De man vat sell de murdered man de vatch know de kind and de number of 
de vatch. Dat vatch you sell me.” 

“ Death and damnation!” exclaimed Nobby Dick, “but day-light will never shine 
on you again, cursed dog of a traitorous Jew !” 

Nobby Dick drew a knife from behind his back, and with eyes glaring like a 
tiger’s, advanced toward the Jew. 

“ De man vat owned de vatch was murdered mit a shlung, unt de shlung unt one of 
de bills vat vas in his possession is mit de police, unt de police is all around dis house,” 
cooly observed the imperturbable Jew. 

Nobby Dick let fall his arm and seated himself and told Isaacs to explain. 

Isaacs did so. 

“ You sees dat de police doesnot knows dat you is here in de house. I tells de police 


34 


THE WANDERING JEW 


I comes here to looks for you, lint de police waits outside till I comeback. De vatch, 
de shlung unt de bill is all in one leetle case vat belongs to me mit de police sealed up ; 
de police does not knows vat is in de box all sealed up, unt I tells de police to keep 
all dem dings till I comes back once. If I don’t comes back to nights, de police opens 
dat box unt finds dem dings, mit one letter which explains it all ; who was murdered, 
de jeweler vat sold de vatch, unt de man vat identify de shlung, unt de man vot fished 
him up out of de river, unt de man vat identify de bill, unt de man vat got him from 
you. You vants to know how I gets all dem dings? Veil, I gets dem all mit my 
time hun'ing for dem ven I find de number of de vatch advertised in de paper, unt I 
vastes my time unt I pays my monish. I tells you no more now. I can hang you 
Mister Nobby Dick.” 

Nobby Dick’s hand sought the handle of his knife, but his better judgment 
prevailed. 

“Well, then,” said Nobby Dick, “what do you want, for I know you did not 
come here to do me a good turn or to risk your life in my hands for nothing. Speak 
and tell me what is your price for my life. Tell me what I am to do to get those evi- 
dences out of your hands and be free. Is it murder ? Yes; I will commit one more, 
or two, if necessary to cover up the first. Why not ? “ It’s always the way. Speak 
and command me. But mark me, Jew, if you play false, this knife shall find your 
heart before I find the gallows. Speak.” 

Isaacs turned his face for a moment from Nobby Dick, and when he turned it to- 
wards him again, Nobby Dick, accustomed as he was to disguises, was astounded at 
the transformation. 

“Now that we understand each other,” said Isaacs, dropping his barbarous jar- 
gon, “disguise is no longer necessary. Though you are totally unacquainted with me, 
I have known and liked you since our first acquaintance. Otherwise I should not 
have been at the trouble and taken the time and paid detectives to track up the evi- 
dence against you, and taken care so to manage the investigation that even the detec- 
tives themselves whom I employed were kept utterly ignorant of what they were 
doing, and could pick up no possible clue upon which to begin a new investigation 
hereafter. It is unnecessary to go farther into detail than to state that my real object 
in making your acquaintance some months ago — which I did under the pretext of 
wanting to buy your stolen goods and actually buying a watch — was to secure your 
services in some jobs of my own, in which I could have paid you more money than 
you were making and where your own personal risk would have been much less. But 
though you pleased me, I could get no hold upon you to secure your fidelity. Fortu- 
nately, however, the watch which I purchased gave me the clue to the discovery 
which I have made, and I have been able to run you down as I have explained. Your 
neck is in my hands, but the police will never know the fate of the man picked up in 
the harbor, unless I furnish them with the information. Now, if you are willing to 
enter my service, and shrink from no deed that I may require you to perform, in con- 
sideration of heavy wages — for I am rich — and silence on my part, call on me pri- 
vately to-morrow morning, at nine o’clock, over the Lake on the Square, and we will 
arrange the terms. There is nothing serious on hands now, and there may not be at 
all. This much for your present satisfaction. And now, Mr. — Mr. — Tyrrell — 
henceforth that shall be your name — good night !” 

Without waiting a reply, Isaacs put on his wig and whiskers and greasy, thread- 
bare overcoat and emerged into the dancing room by the way he came, took his pic- 
tures from the bar-keeper and passed into the street. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SPECKS OF CLOUD. 

Rose and Hales continued to love each other and to pass their evenings together. 
Rose was busy as a bee all day long with her painting and was always glad when 
night came, not only because it usually brought her lover, but because she could lay 
down her brush and pencil and rest her eyes. Hales was busy, too, in his way ; but 


IN AMERICA. 


35 


fortune always seemed to take sides against him. He was one of those men who seem 
born to be unsuccessful — laborious men of great energy and force of character, but 
who expend their strength in directions that do not lead to pecuniary profit — . His nov- 
elettes, religio-political in tone, founded upon the old Italian legends, brought him in 
but a mere pittance. His publishers said that the country was flooded with just such 
productions, and that they could not afford to pay more than a merely nominal price. 

Sometimes he gathered information and arranged facts and tables for the Senator, 
who received great credit for accuracy and range of research when his speeches were 
printed. But Hales received less for a day’s work applied to this purpose than the 
stone-cutters upon the public buildings. 

His pecuniary condition embarrassed him. It did more. It mortified him. He 
lived with the most rigid self-denial, and yet it was all he could do to pay Rose the 
paltry sum he agreed to, for making the translations. Should he withold this ex- 
penditure, he must give up Rose, he thought, for his pride could not endure the hu- 
miliation of living upon her bounty. But to give up Rose was to give up all, and 
that was to give up life itself. The thought of giving her up was not to be entertained 
for a moment. So he starved on his crust in his attic and gave his money to Rose. 

Every evening when Hales did not come, Rose was at Madame Zarowski’s. This 
lady was her only customer, and she was constantly sending Rose word to come to see 
her about this thing or about that. This line w r as not sufficiently shaded. that color was too 
light, or this too deep. Madame Zarowski made pretentions to art herself, but even 
if she had not, she was the purchaser, and her views and suggestions had to be fol- 
lowed. Consequently, Rose was there very often. Upon these occasions she would 
invariably meet the Senator. She was on friendly terms with him. She overlooked 
his first rude demonstration when Madame Zarowski explained to her that it was 
merely a harmless gallantry, which, although it might be exceptional in itself, could not 
be regarded as an insult, as it was the universal practice in society. And then Rose 
was the more disposed to pardon the offence, as the Senator afterwards observed to- 
wards her the strictest decorum and propriety. She thought she discovered some 
marks of attention in his behavior, but these were so delicate and refined, and hisman- 
ner was that of so complete a gentlemin, and his conversation so entertaining withal, 
that by dint of consumate skill and the advantage of frequent opportunity, he not only 
repaired his first mistake, but succeeded in winning her good opinion and esteem. As 
to Madame Zarowski, Rose looked upon her in the light of a customer, rather a trouble- 
some one indeed, but being her only one, as a proper subject for consideration. But 
she w r as not now so profitable as she had been ; she had offered Rose some costly pres- 
ents on one occasion, to be received as such, and Rose had declined to receive them 
in such an emphatic manner, that the experiment was never repeated. For 
Rose was proud, and there was no such intimate relationship to justify such a gift ; 
she was unwilling to accept the obligation and place herself in a false position. From that 
time forward, Madame Zarowski had given her no new work. In fact, Isaacs had told 
her to cut Rose off, if she continued refractory. At present, she was merely finishing 
what work she had on hands, and when this was done, it was questionable whether the 
Madame would require her services any longer. Then she would be entirely depend- 
ent upon Hale’s translations, unless good fortune would throw something else in her 
way. 

Rose’s nature was the very reverse of Hale’s. He was from the North — grave, re- 
flective and melancholy. She was from the South — hopeful and happy and joyous. 
With her the love of beauty was an instinct. She loved the skies and the fields and 
the forests and the rivers. And she loved to see the gas- lights of the chandeliers flash- 
ing upon beautiful women, clothed in beautiful garments and sparkling in jewels. She 
enjoyed beauty in all the simplicity and enthusiasm of childhood, and never once 
thought it a hardship that she herself could not shine and dazzle among the glittering 
throngs she saw through the windows of the houses as she passed along the street at 
night. Like the beggars that bask beneath the sun and skies of Naples and watch the 
glorious bay the live-long time from morning till the sun sinks in his bed of roses and 
lilies in the West, her enjoyment of beauty was complete in itself. There was no ad- 
mixture of sadness, discontent or envy to dim the purity and lessen the joy of her 
emotion. She did not know what it was to have enemies, or to stand, guard against 
the treachery and plots of pretended friends ; or what it was to engage in that terrible 
battle, called “ the struggle for physical existence,” which only those can properly un- 


36 


THE WANDERING JEW 


derstand who have had it to fight. 

So Rose was at peace with the world and loved everybody. 

But she was a full grown woman inheart and mind and soul, as well as in body. 
There was no real danger to be feared for her on acrount of her ignorance and inex- 
perience in the ways of the world. She had escaped the torturing and mutilating pro- 
cess which young ladies must undergo to prepare them for society. The growth and 
expansion of sentiment and thought within her had not been forced into cramping 
forms and moulds to grow rigid in unnatural shapes. She had developed into true 
womanhood, the free and graceful woman of nature, as nature had formed her, and as 
nature alone had caused her to grow. Of course, she was not philosophical and re- 
flective. It is only diseased humanity that turns within and feeds upon itself; and 
Rose was free from every taint of education. Her womanly instincts would keep her 
from harm. 

There were no secrets between Rose and Hales. Hales knew all about her visits 
to Madame Zarowski and whom she met there. He had no fear that she would for- 
get him and become discontented with her narrow sphere and sigh for the blaze and 
fashion of the great world into which she had been introduced at Madame Zarowski’s 
house. And he was right. Rose continued loving and affectionate and happy. She 
felt somehow as if she belonged to Hales, and this sense of dependence was so sweet ! 

When he would come in the evenings, she would sit down close beside him and 
talk to him with all the artlessness and innocence of a child. 

The storm might be at its wild work without, and the favorites of wealth and 
fashion might be rushing by outside in silks and furs, in carriages that rattled to and 
fro, and the great world might sup and drink and sing and dance. What matter? 
Rose’s parlor would be a Paradise, and of all the gay devotees of pleasure and amuse- 
ment, there would be none so completely happy as Hales and Rose. 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE MISTAKE. 

Hales and Rose were alone together in the little parlor. It was late at night and 
Hales was still busy, writing rapidly, with his books ard papers piled on the table 
and on the floor around him. Rose was seated opposite working at some embroidery. 
The sandwiches and coffee cups were on the table and the water was boiling and bub- 
bling in the kettle on the stove. 

Rose never interrupted Hales when he was writing and this evening he had been 
engaged much longer than usual and scarcely more than a word had passed between 
the two for hours. Hales worked away and Rose kept still. 

“ There now, it is finished at last;” said Hales, throwing down his pen and turn- 
ing his chair facing Rose and the stove; “finished at last and probablv ths last piece 
of literary work that I shall do for some time to come if I am to escape starvation and 
have something left for Rose.” 

“ What is it George ; tell me,” said Rose looking up enquiringly from her stitch- 
ing. 

“ It is simply this, Rose, that I have nothing to do and have not enough money 
to pay for a dinner to-morrow unless I sell some of my books or clothes,” replied 
Hales. 

“ Ah ! is that all!” laughed Rose, “why then come and dine with me to-mor- 
row,” she added archly. 

“ But seriously, Rose,” answered Hales, “ the question is a grave one. I might 
share your meal to-morrow and the day after and the day following that; but, you 
know this could not continue. And then I have other expenses. It is true they are 
light, but without the means to meet them, the amount will make no difference and 
I am none the less a beggar.” 

“ Take this then,” said Rose, taking out her pocket-book and tossing it to him 
with assumed gravity and condescension, “ and eat and drink to my health and your 
own better encouragement.” 


IN AMERICA. 


37 


Hales could not resist smiling himself, desperate as liis real situation was, at the 
mock heroic tone and accent with which Rose was pleased to make known her grace. 

He said, “you are a darling!” 

“But so are not you when your courage fails and you give up hope. What will 
become of poor little Rose when you forsake her?” she replied, with a pearly tear 
standing in her large black eye. 

“ Dearest creature,” he exclaimed “I was wrong to give you pain, but I merely 
meant to state my present situation, and to have you help me to consider what next 

Rose dried her eyes, and in a moment more was radiant with happiness. 

“ Madame Zarowski has given me no more new work for i-ome time past, and has 
paid me for all I have done, and my entire fortune is in the pocket-book in your 
hands and I must think of something, too, and so we will hold a council of war to- 
gether. But first let us estimate what is our present strength to oppose the common 
enemy.” 

Rose spoke this in a firm and soldier-like manner. 

PI ales opened the pocket-book. It contained seven dollars and some cents. 

Hales shook his head with a melancholy smile. 

“ But Jhe rent is paid for my rooms in advance for this month, and we have 
enough to last until one or both of us find something to do,” said Rose gaily, “ and 
then you know I shall see more of you if you dine with me every day in the mean- 
while,” she added with her large, loving eyes cast affectionately upon him. 

“ I have made a terrible mistake, Rose,” said Hales, changing the tenor of the 
conversation, “ but then it was before I saw you and learned to love you.” 

‘ * Is it too late to correct it?” she asked. 

“ Possibly not; at all events I am determined to make the effort to do so,” he 
answered. 

“And the sooner the better, too, George,” said Rose; “but what was your mis- 
take ? ” she enquired. 

“ Trying to enjoy the luxury of being an honest man when my pecuniary means 
would not admit of the extravagance,” replied Hales bitterly. 

Rose. I do not understand you ; you have always been honest ? 

Hales. Unfortunately ; Yes. 

Rose. Why unfortunately ? 

Hales. Because had I not been so, I would not now be penniless and dependent, 
for a while at least, on your kindness for food and shelter. But I shall correct my 
error and go as far as the best of them for all time to come. 

Rose. But you will not do anything wicked ? 

Hales. No ; dear child. On the contrary ; I shall do something which is regard- 
ed as eminently proper and patriotic, and shall be applauded for doing so. 

Rose. What will that be ? 

Hales. I am going to support the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant 

Bill. 

Rose. And what is that? 

Hales. It is to give away something less than half of the territory of the United 
States to a dozen or more persons and their successors in fee simple forever. 

Rose. And how can that affect our happiness in any way? 

Hales. True, child ; how can it ? 

Rose. And why will you support it ? 

Hales. For money. 

Rose. And is there anything wrong in that? I paint for money and why should 
not you write for money? 

Hales. There is no reason why I should not. Long enough have I beat my 
head against the iron bars of my cage like a mad fool ; long enough have I lived un- 
der the delusion that there was hope in the sordid and vulgar rabble. . I thought 
that I, — I, a miserable beggar, not even secure of my own existence, might accom-- 
plish something on the side of Truth and Justice, although the wealth and rank and 
power of the land were arrayed against me. I had a wild and glorious dream of 
God and humanity. That dream is past. 

Rose. And what will you do, George,? 

Hales. I shall write a line to Mr. Hearsey and tell him I have reconsidered the 


38 


THE WANDERING JEW 


matter and am willing to support his bill. 

Rose. And then we shall have money ; shall we not, George? And we shall be 
so happy ; so happy ! 

Hales. Yes, Rose, we will be happy and you shall be my only divinity. 

Rose. But tell me ; what is that you have been writing to-night ? 

Hales. It is an anonymous communication addressed to the Senator. I want to 
test him. I know his ambition and his power. Will he dare be great ? Will he 
have the coui age to grasp for the stars? This is what I wish to ascertain. The 
means are in his hands; the opportunity is before him. If he raise the flag and 
sound the cry there is a career before him that mortal man has never made. In my 
communication I have endeavored to show him how this is so. This is my last effort 
in this direction unless I hear of something from the Senator to indicate 
the purpose I have suggested to him. If I hear nothing from him, I shall apply 
to Hearsey and if he makes no favorable response, my literary labor is ended and I 
shall seek some other field of enterprise to realize the means to make you happy. 

Rose. When by your side I am always happy, George. 

And Bose skipped like a fawn across the room and took her cithern out of its 
case in the corner, and began to sing and play some of the happy songs of happy 
Southern France. * 

And Hales sat silent and thoughtful. His look was care-worn and anxious. 

When Rose had finished her songs she crept up to Hales and put her white arm 
around his neck, smoothed back his hair, and then nestled her face close up against 
his. Hales pressed her hard against his heart and kissed her on the forehead. 

“George,” said Rose, “do you know how I would like to die ?” 

“What makes you think of dying now, dear Rose ?” asked Hales. 

“ I cannot tell, but the river is so broad and beautiful, and seems so like a grand 
old friend,” replied Rose. “But,” she added, with a fearful determination of purpose 
which looked out at her eyes, “I have a poison for those who would harm you, 
George. My poor, dear, old father — her eyes filled with tears and her voice faltered — 
gave it to me to use in the last extremity. The revolutionists used it in the old 
times in France, he said. It does not produce death immediately, but administered 
at intervals for a little while it destroys the nerves of the brain and reduces the victim 
to complete subjection to the will of any person who is about him and chooses to 
control him. After a time idiocy follows and then comes death.” 

And Hales had a glimpse for the first time down into the deeps of Rose’s soul. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE TABLEAUX. 

Madame Zarowski spared no pains or expense to make her house attractive. And 
being herself a woman of wit and culture and taste and fashion and beautiful besides, 
she succeeded. 

She had appointed an evening for tableaux in the drawing-rooms, and had invited 
a select few of her friends to be present at the entertainment. 

Madame Zarowski’s circle was the innermost one of all the charmed circles in 
Washington. And her tableaux ! — those who were so distinguishedly favored as to have 
the entree there had penetrated into the very sanctum sanctorum of the arcana of 
high life. 

Not that her tableaux were essentially different from those exhibited in the cheap 
theatres in large cities— especially those in sea-port towns— only the actors and the 
spectators belonged to a di flerent class from these. The nymphs du pave who adver- 
tised their charms on revolving pedestals, in the temples of art about Chatham square 
and the Bowery, for an admission price of ten cents, could not be compared for a mo- 
ment with the beautiful bevy of young girls that Madame Zarowski selected with such 
care from her wide field of acquaintance. Nor could the weather-beaten sailors, the 
besmeared and brass-bejewelled Jews, the pickpockets and the thieves who frequented 


IN AMERICA. 


39 


the aforesaid temples be mentioned in the same connection with the learned doctors, 
the lawyers, the judges, statesmen and divines who attended the tableaux of Madame 
Zarowski. 

Upon a closer examination, the resemblance between the two classes of exhibi- 
tions would become more apparent. Madame Zarowski’s girls were poor and fond of 
fashion and display, and for the most part without natural protectors. They had been 
selected solely with a view to their natural beauty. And they vied with each other 
in the arts of exposing their personal attractions to the best possible advantage. It 
must be remembered, too, that statesmen and divines, as well as thieves and pick- 
pockets, are but human creatures after all, and none the less susceptible to the charms 
of leg and bosom, by reason of their high vocations. As for the girls themselves, they 
enjoyed it, and so far from being offended at the gallant remarks and observations of the 
distinguished guests assembled, this would only stimulate their ambition to render 
themselves deserving of the compliments they received. Madame Zarowski, who was 
the priestess of these rites, did not demand a fee of ten cents from each spectator, but 
if the flame of soft desire had been kindled in the breasts of any of the lawyers, judges, 
statesmen or divines who were present, the priestess could so arrange it that the unhap- 
py one thus stricken could meet the object of his passion alone in her own private 
parlors upon another occasion, when he could pour out his soul without fear of in- 
trusion or interruption. The consideration which Madame Zarowski would receive 
for this favor would be a promise to support the Grand Consolidated Railway Land 
Grant Bill. 

Rose was one of the young ladies selected by Madame Zarowski to appear in the 
tableaux. When she first received the note of invitation and request, she was not 
disposed to go, but she reflected that she was sadly in need of funds, and that by grat- 
ifying Madame Zarowski, she might receive from hsr some more work, and thus be able 
to put Hales and herself on a living footing. This consideration determined her pur- 
pose, and she went. 

She was graciously received by Madame Zarowski, who presented quite a number 
of gentlemen to her for an introduction. Among the gentlemen thus presented, were 
the Rev. Doctor Charles Plesington, Mr. Isaacs, and a Mr. Tyrrell, a young gentleman 
of family and fortune, it was said, who was on a visit to the capital city. Mr. 
Hearsey was not present, but his good lady was there, having been escorted by Doctor 
Plesington, and Rose was presented to her. 

The guests were not numerous, but the company was elite. A noticeable feature 
was, that, with the exception of Mr. Tyrrell, all the male guests were of middle age or past 
it ; while all the ladies except Mrs. Hearsey and the priestess were under twenty. The 
absence of the department clerks was also worth remarking ; but the fact that there 
was no dancing might account satisfactorily for this vacancy. It is further proper to 
mention in this connection that Jenkins was not admitted. He had struggled hard 
to obtain a card, but had failed. 

The most remarkable thing, however, about the entertainment was the ease and 
freedom which prevailed, and the want of anything like fashionable etiquette. There 
was no profusion of silks and jewels and laces. Madame Zarowski herself was dressed 
in a plain white muslin, with a black silk cape thrown over her shoulders, and her 
hair was bound with a single blue ribbon. The young ladies had received their in- 
structions and came attired in an equally simple and unassuming manner. 

This was a prudent arrangement of Madame Zarowski. One and all of the 
young ladies present, excepting Rose, would willingly have put their charms alone, 
ip competition with the world ; but most of them being unable to afford a fashionable 
party dress, would have hesitated to have come where what they had on might have 
been made the object of criticism. And the very object of the tableaux was to bring 
these ladies together, and pass them in review before the distinguished gentlemen 
present. And this object would have been defeated, had dress been made a require- 
ment of admission. And then again, simplicity and economy in dress was an evi- 
dence to the experienced old voluptuaries that the young things were yet fresh and 
uncorrupted, otherwise they would have been able to have displayed more extrava- 
gance. 

There were no servants on these occasions and the guests helped themselves and 
each other. # 

The long suite of drawing-rooms and boudoirs and side-cabinets were all thrown 


4Q 


THE WANDERING JEW 


open, and in the end of the furthest room stood tables piled with all the materials for 
a luxurious cold collation. There was boned turkey, duck, partridges, quail and veni- 
son. There were coflees and breads and cakes and confectioneries. There were pyra- 
mids of wine bottles, filled with the oldest and choicest juices, piled upon the side- 
boards and stronger liquors were on the shelves underneath. There were wax candles 
and boxes of fine cigars upon the centre-tables. The shutters were closed ; the double 
window sashes were down and the heavy curtains were drawn inside. 

There was no formal invitation to take refreshments. The tables were there and 
ready for each one to partake, whenever and as often as appetite prompted. Some 
were eating and drinking, some were promenading the saloons in couples and some of 
the gentlemen were smoking and some of them were paired with the ladies and closely 
engaged with them in conversation, on the sofas, in the cabinets and boudoirs. All 
seemed to be supremely contented and happy, excepting the unfortunate Doctor Ples- 
ington. For Mrs. Hearsey, knowing his general weakness in this direction, had man- 
aged to get an invitation and was present for the single purpose of mounting guard 
over him. Owing to this circumstance, the Doctor was not so brilliant and entertain- 
ing as he had been when he was in the apartments the last time. 

Rose amused herself, too, in her way. But her enjoyment was quiet and rational, 
and not wild and stormy. She was such a still and demure little thing in company 
that but few ever noticed her presence. It was so upon this occasion, and the Senator 
had her all to himself in a little library which opened into the drawing-rooms, and 
where the two were looking over books and pictures together. 

At eleven o’clock the tableaux were to begin. The stage had been fitted up in 
the end of the suite of drawing rooms, opposite to that occupied by the refreshment 
tables. A cabinet which opened upon the stage behind the curtain, and which was 
accessible from another room in the house, was used for the green-room. 

No cost had been spared in making the arrangements. Appropriate costumes of 
great elegance and taste had been prepared at the theatre establishments. The scenery 
had all been painted by the best artists, expressly for the occasion. The rarest flow- 
ers and plants had been provided. Isaacs himself had recently furnished Zarowski 
with pearls and diamonds. Everything was complete for the exhibition down to the 
chemicals for the colored lights and the gold and silver shower dust. 

Madame Zarowski had selected or designed alj the tableaux herself, and being a 
lady of excellent taste in such matters, had so arranged and apportioned them as to 
bring out all the strong points of the young ladies in the best manner possible. 

To Rose had been assigned the death-scene of Cleopatra with the basket of fruits 
and flowers and the asp. 

The guests were all seated in rows facing the stage and the curtain was ready to 
rise. Five or six musicians who had been in waiting below were admitted. The 
music began, the bell rang, the curtain went up. 

A rich variety of beautiful tableaux appeared in succession on the stage. The 
display of feet and arms and neck and ankles was all that could be desired. The spec- 
tators were loud in their approbation, and the young lady performers were happy. 

“ Cleopatra in the death-scene !” announced Madame Zarowski. 

A low, deep murmur of approbation was heard from the audience as the curtain 
slowly went up, and Rose appeared in this great picture. 

Her physical beauty and symmetry were perfect. Her robes were the richest and 
most elegant that art could devise or money could procure. A tiara of diamonds 
sparkled and burned in her thick black hair, clusters of pearl hung about her dark 
brown neck and shoulders, and a bunch of opals was fastened on her breast. The 
scenery in the back-ground represented the pyramids, the Nile, lotus flowers, and a 
forest of palm trees, under a dark-brown African sky. She was seated on a throne, 
and attendant maidens were ranged in groups around her. Her arms were bare, and 
her left was hanging carelessly down over the back of the throne and fully exposed. 
Her right elbow was resting upon a table covered with the cloth of gold, and her head 
slightly inclined backwards and to one side, seemed to be resting upon the tips of fin- 
gers that looked like flower-stamens and had the roseate glow of sea shells. Upon the 
table stood the fatal basket, filled with fruits and flowers. Her eyes were cast upwards 
and fixed on vacancy. Her throat and a portion of her richly- colored bosom was ex- 
posed. She sat motionless as a statue, blending in her expressive face the passions 
and emotions of love and despair, of sorrow and defiance. She was a woman-symbol 


IN AMERICA. 


41 


of the dying gladiator. 

When the curtain fell, the applause was unbounded. The men all wished to know 
who Rose was, and the young ladies were all undergoing an agony of jealousy. 
Madame Zarowski maliciously asked Mrs. Hearsey if she had noticed the enthusiastic 
admiration of Doctor Plesington. That estimable woman thought she had, and pro- 
ceeded at once to put the unfortunate divine under a still stricter serveilliance. 

Rose’s part concluded the performances. The musicians withdrew, and the ser- 
vants were ordered to remain below and admit no one, under any circumstances what- 
ever. The drawing room doors were closed and the merriment proper of the evening 
began. The ladies now appeared among the gentlemen again in their costumes. 
There was feasting and drinking and high revelry. The old roues plied the girls 
with generous wines until the color mantled in their cheeks and their eyes sparkled 
with excitement. There was love-making and flirting and intrigue, and there was 
billing and cooing going on in the adjoining boudoirs and cabinets. The wine flowed 
and the girls romped. The lawyers, judges, statesmen and divines caught the infec- 
tion. They mingled furiously in the revelry. The gas was turned down low, and 
blind man’s buff was played ; forfeits were taken, and the penalties were rigorously ex- 
acted. The girls submitted and the old libertines triumphed. For wine and passion 
ruled the hour. Only poor Doctor Plesington did not enjoy himself at all. Driven 
by the supervision of that excellent lady, Mrs. Hearsey, to the very brink of despair, 
that worthy divine had poured out libations to Bacchus until he was hiccoughing 
helplessly in close proximity to Dame Hearsey’s crinoline. But that strong minded 
woman had conquered. She would have no further occasion for jealousy that even- 
ing and so she was contented with the manner in which she had performed the duties 
which she had imposed upon herself. 

Rose took no part in the wild excitement of the evening. As soon as she came 
off the stage, the Senator led her back again to the library where they had been look- 
ing over the books and pictures, before the performances had commenced. 

After a long interview, the Senator left her alone and passed into the drawing- 
rooms, and gave his arm to Madame Zarowski. 

Madame Zarowski conducted him through the noisy and tumultuous company 
and led him through two or three rooms into a private apartment of her own. 

“ And what has been the result of the honorable Senator’s suit this evening?” 
asked Madame Zarowski when the two were seated alone together without fear of in- 
terruption. 

“ Rose still remains as indifferent to me as ever,” answered the Senator with vex- 
ation and chagrin. 

Zarowski. Did you declaie your passion ? 

Senator. No ; for that would only have been to subject myself to additional 
humiliation at her hands. 

Zarowski. How then can you expect her to be aware of its existence ? 

Senator. Because my attentions to her ever since I first met her here — and 
you have afforded me ample opportunity — have been of such a character that she 
could not possibly mistake them. 

Zarowski. And have you exhausted all your arts ? 

Senator. I have laid siege to her heart from every point. I have tried the 
most delicate flattery and made the most insinuating appeals to her vanity and her 
ambition ; I have tried to create new hopes and aspirations ; I have gone so far as to 
attempt to excite her fears. All my intrigues and schemes have come to nothing. 
She is as obdurate as a stone. 

Zarowski. And does the honorable Senator propose to abandon the pursuit and 
give up the game ? 

Senator. Give her up ! Not while life and vigor last. What does all my 
wealth and power and all the pride of my position avail me as long as she can baulk 
my wishes ? I tell you, Zarowski, without her I cannot live. She haunts my very 
soul. Her image is constantly before me to torment me by day and by night. I fol- 
low her in my dreams. My passion for her consumes me. If she withold herself, I 
shall die of desire. But she must and shall be mine at every sacrifice and every 
risk. 

The Senator spoke this fiercely and in a voice husky with passion. 

“ And would the honorable Senator give his commanding influence to the sup- 


42 


THE WANDERING JEW 


port of the Grand Consolidated Kailway Land Grant Bill, if the goddess that he wor- 
shipped were placed in his arms ?” demanded Madame Zarowski. 

For a moment the Senator paused, and then replied: 

“ Even that, Zarowski.” 

“Has she agreed to meet you at your apartments on the pretext on your part of 
giving her work ?” asked Zarowski. 

“ She has,” replied the Senator. 

“ Your hand, Senator, on the contract.” 

“ My hand, Zarowski.” 

“And your word of honor ?” 

“ And my word of honor.” 

The bargain was closed. 

Madame Zarowski left the Senator and sought Isaacs. She found him alone in a 
cabinet awaiting her. She repeated to him the conversation she had just had with 
the Senator, and then she went on to give that part of the conversation with Doctor 
Plesington which related to the proposed treachery of that divine and Mr. Hearsev. 

Isaacs had not seen her since his return from New York ; he had been too busily 
engaged. He listened attentively to what she had to say, and when she had conclu- 
ded, he told her that she had served him faithfully. 

“ And may I be free now ?” she asked timidly. 

“ Yes ; you have done all that lies in your power to do and can serve me no 
longer,” replied Isaacs in a milder tone then his accustomed one. “ I shall take the 
girl in hand myself now.” 

“ And the horrible history of my life in Paris, before you took me from the cafe 
chan tan t in St. Antoine?” faltered Zarowski. 

“ Shall die with me,” said the Jew. 

“ Heaven bless you,” sobbed Zarowski, clasping his hands in hers and covering 
them with her kisses and her tears. 

“ And though the Jew is cold and cruel,” said Isaacs, “he never fails to reward 
faithful service according to its value. You have done all that you could, Irene, and 
the balance of the amount placed at the banker’s to your credit and to be expended in 
my service, which is not yet disposed of, shall be your own. It will make you inde- 
pendent and place you above the world. Up to this point our destinies have been 
mysteriously connected, but here they separate. Good-night and Farewell. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


NOBBY DICK. 

“ Nobby Dick,” alias Mr. Tyrrell, had met Mr. Isaacs the next morning after the 
interview between them “over the Lake on the Square,” and had accepted his condi- 
tions and entered his service. 

Mr. Tyrrell — for so he shall be designated in the remainder of this history — was 
every way qualified to succeed as a man of the world. He had originally been trained 
to business and understood it thoroughly. He was active and industrious, sprightly 
and good-looking, was possessed of an average degree of culture and had polite and 
easy manners. He could readily make himself a favorite with any reasonable em- 
ployer, and become popular generally. It was owing to these qualifications that Mr. 
Isaacs had selected him. 

Tyrrell’s career in that species of vice which is ever liable to meet with open and 
disgraceful punishment had been a short one. He had been led astray in the usual 
manner. Hard work and insufficient pay, then pilfering from his employer, followed 
by a discharge and the impossibility of obtaining any honest employment that would 
afford him the means of gratifying his large stock of desires and wants, had been the 
moving causes which impelled him to take to vulgar thieving, from which beginning 
he had been led on and on until he had committed the deed which put his neck in 
Mr. Isaacs’ pocket, as we have already seen. 


IN AMERICA. 


43 


He was not generally known to the police, and to his objection that he had been 
discharged for pilfering, and that some of the detectives had had their eyes upon him, 
and that he might not succeed in society, Mr Isaacs had allayed his fears and reassured 
him with the statement of his — Isaacs’ — experience, that so many men of the world 
were in the same box themselves, that they readily overlooked such youthful delin- 
quencies on the ground of inexperience, unless, indeed, the culprit had been the sub- 
ject of disgraceful punishment for his offence, in which case there would be no hope 
for him. 

Mr. Tyrrell had accompanied Mr Isaacs from New York to Washington and had 
there been introduced into the best society. Madame Zarowski had received him and 
invited him to her tableaux, which was such a distinguished honor. Doctor Plesing- 
ton was too happy to vouch for him at any time, and Mrs. Hearsey gave him an addi- 
tional shove by sounding his praises wherever she went. 

Mr. Tyrrell had been placed as one of Mr. Hearsey’s confidential clerks through 
Mr. Isaacs’ influence for the purpose of observing and reporting to his patron all the 
movements and operations of his nominal employer that he might chance to find out. 

Mr. Hearsey had given the place to Mr. Tyrrell because he desired to show to 
Mr. Isaacs the extent of his good will and confidence towards him, and to allay any 
suspicion that might arise in his bosom, derogatory to his — Mr. Hearsey’s — good 
faith and honesty in their mutual grand enterprise. 

Mr. Tyrrell conducted himself in all respects as a gentleman of breeding and 
honor. Being supplied from Hearsey and Isaacs both with all the money he wanted, 
he was able to gratify his wants and desires without being reduced to the terrible ne- 
cessity of grand and petit larcency or burglary or forgery. 

Mr. Tyrrell was furthermore strictly temperate in all his habits and was — follow- 
ing Mr. Isaacs’ advice — a regular attendant on divine worship in Doctor Piesing- 
ton’s church. He was on the high road to success in life. 

Not that any wonderful moral revolution had taken place in Mr. Tyrrell’s senti- 
ent organism ; on the contrary, he remained essentially and identically the same 
“ Nobby Dick ” of former times. His circumstances were merely changed and his 
range of operations enlarged ; that was all. He was still as ready to scuttle a ship or 
cut a throat as ever he had been to pick a pocket or crack a till while engaged in his 
former field of enterprise. The only difference was that he would do these things now 
under the wing of an all powerful protection and in strict observance of the rules of 
propriety. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE PLOT. 

“ The session of Congress draws to a close. There is no time to be lost. What is 
done must be done quickly. But that was famous generalship in Irene to draw Hear- 
sey’s treachery out of that old fool Plesington ! I had expected as much from him, 
but not in that direction. Tyrrell will take care of Mr. Hearsey. And that obdurate 
wench of a wild gipsy girl who holds out in refusing the Senator! Poor thing! Why 
does she not meet the Inevitable easily and gracefully like a lamb that is led to the 
altar to grace a festival ? She might approach her fate crowned with bays and roses, 
the emblems of love and conquest. She refuses. It is not my fault. She is to visit 
the Senator. But if he could not win her in Irene’s boudoirs he cannot improve re- 
sults in his own chambers. It was the fierceness of his passion that prompted him to 
exact from her the promise. It must be looked to that in the rage and tempest of 
desire, the Senator does not forget himself and ruin all by a fatal attempt to coerce her 
will when the two are alone together in his great, dark mansion. But she shall be 
his. He has given his hand and his word and his honor to support the Bill on this 
condition. And he shall possess her in spite of all her refractory efforts ; in spite of 
all her struggles to resist and escape him. And no form of law or requirement of 
society shall be violated in placing him in full possession.” 

Thus soliloquized Isaacs, the Jew, as he sat alone in his business office about 


44 


THE WANDERING JEW 


eleven o’clock at night with his right arm resting on the round green table and his 
eyes fixed upon the glowing coals in the grate. 

Isaacs was not given to soliloquizing or idleness. 

On this occasion he was waiting for Mr. Tyrrell to come in and make his report. 

Presently the door opened and this gentleman made his appearance. 

Isaacs. Anything further from Hearsey ? 

Tyrrell. Nothing of importance. He spends most of his time in New York as 
you are aware. 

Isaacs. Was there anything of interest in his correspondence? 

Tyrrell. Yes. 

Isaacs. What? 

Tyrrell. A supplicating letter from Hales, the journalist, whom you ordered 
me to keep eyes upon and run down, stating his pecuniary distress and begging em- 
ployment. 

Isaacs. Was he poor; very poor; the pauper? 

Tyrrell. Entirely destitute and due for a week’s lodgings. 

Isaacs. What did he propose to do ? 

Tyrrell. Write for the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill. 

Isaacs. Mr. Hales’ services once solicited are no longer required. 

Mr. Isaacs rubbed his hands in a great glee and seemed to be meditating. 

“ Tyrrell,” said Isaacs, “ this man Hales is a great scoundrel.” 

“ And a dangerous man,” added Tyrrell. 

11 His socialistic principles and his inflamatory appeals to the working men may 
result in great mischief,” said Isaacs. 

“And lead to the destruction of towns and cities by fire and to mob processions 
with red flags and cries of “ Bread or Blood,” put in the late Mr. Nobby Dick. 

“ He is a debauched wretch, who has spent his substance in riotous living with a 
mistress,” said Isaacs. 

“ And is capable of committing any crime in the calendar,” added the virtuous 
Tyrrell in an emphatic manner. 

“ Such a man should be made an example of,” said Mr. Isaacs. 

“I have informed Mrs. Hearsey of his relation with the Cleopatra of the tableaux 
and you may depend upon her giving it sufficient tongue in the community,” remark- 
ed Mr. Tyrrell. 

“ Good,” said Mr. Isaacs with a grunt. 

“ I have made the fellow’s acquaintance as you ordered me, and stand on fair 
terms with him. I have watched him and dogged his steps wherever he has gone, 
butl can ferret out nothing that would justify his arrest by the legal authorities. I 
must confess that the villain’s schemes are too deep for me,” said Tyrrell, with a 
solemn shaking of the head. 

“ Society will not require overwhelming evidence to send such a dangerous char- 
acter to the gallows or the State’s prison,” strongly observed Mr. Isaacs. 

“ And the man who might bring him to justice would be rewarded as a public 
benefactor,” said Tyrrell, looking keenly into Mr. Isaacs’ eyes. 

“ Has Mr. Hearsey properly authorized you to sign his name in his absence ?” 
asked Mr. Isaacs. 

“ Only the other day he bestowed upon me that flattering mark of his confidence,” 
answered Mr. Tyrrell. 

“ Do you know the ‘Rogue’s Post/ Mr. Tyrrell?” inquired Mr. Isaacs. 

“ I heard an old stager once allude to it. But it must be a rare article and its use 
confined to the very top of our profession, for I have never seen it or even heard it 
spoken of but this one time. It is a kind of writing paper, I believe, that possesses 
some very peculiar properties,” replied Mr. Tyrrell. 

Mr. Isaacs went to his safe, unlocked it and sprung a secret drawer in the side 
and produced a sheet of paper. 

“And now, Mr. Tyrell,” said Mr. Isaacs, “I will give you the master’s 
degree.” 

Mr. Tyrrell took the paper and examined it with g.oat care. There was nothing 
about it to distinguish it from ordinary fine letter paper, except, perhaps, that it was 
not ruled and was not very smoothly glazed. 

Mr. Isaacs took a pen and wrote his name on the lower margin of the sheet. Then 


IN AMERICA. 


45 


he tore it off so as to make jagged and irregular indentures. He then produced from 
tli e safe a small, square bottle wrapped in buckskin and cased in lead, and took a 
small camel’s hair pencil and applied a few drops of the pale, colorless liquid which it 
contained to. the sheet lying before him, covering a space large enough upon which to 
place the slip he had torn off with his name upon the moistened surface, and then 
penciled it over with a few more drops of the same fluid. Then he dried it be- 
fore the gas and handed it to Mr. Tyrrell for inspection. 

Mr. Tyrrell was lost in wonder and admiration. He had never seen anything 
half so beautiful in all his life. The slip containing the name seemed literally to have 
been melted into and become absorbed in the page upon which it had been pasted ! 
There was not the vestige of a line or shade or color to show the shape of the slip 
that had been attached. 

Mr. Isaacs then took the sheet and placed it between two leaves of tissue paper, 
and held it before the gas, and lo ! there was to be traced clearly and distinctly the 
jagged and irregular outlines of the indentures. 

“ This is no slight of hand performance, Tyrrell,” said Isaacs, amused at his 
dumb astonishment; “ it is tangible reality. But few living men besides myself have 
the secret of this paper, and it is never employed except in the rarest and most extra- 
ordinary emergencies.” 

Mr Isaacs then took a drop of oil and water and loosend the slip and pulled it 

off. 

Tyrrell continued to stare in mute amazement. 

“ You have not of course replied to Hales’ letter ?” asked Mr. Isaacs with a neg- 
ative accent. 

“ I was waiting your instructions,” answered Tyrrell. 

“ My instructions are these,” said Mr. Isaacs : “ you will take with you this even- 
ing three sheets of the ‘ Rogue’s Post.’ One of them you will retain yourself. Upon 
one of them you will address a polite note to Mr. Hales, regretting your inability to 
comply with his wishes. To this note you will attach Mr. Hearsey’s signature. You 
will deliver this note in person to Mr. Hales, and carry the other sheet with you and 
manage to secrete it in Hales’ papers where you can find it again. Then your skill 
as a pick-pocket will enable you to detach Mr. Hearsey’s signature from the note — 
and for this purpose you must write Mr. Hearsey’s name well below the body of the 
note — place the nameless note in a pigeon hole in Hales’ desk, and bring back the 
slip containing Mr. Hearsey’s signature with you. Do you understand ?” 

11 Perfectly,” replied Tyrrell, “ and an easy job to put up on that absent-minded, 
dreaming, unsuspecting fool.” 

“ After you have done this,” continued Isaacs, “you will write on the sheet which 
you have retained an order purporting to be from Mr. Hearsey on myself, to pay to 
George Hales the sum of five hundred dollars for services rendered in the support of 
the Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill. To this order you will attach the 
signature of Mr. Hearsey, which you have torn off from the note addressed by your- 
self to Hales as you have seen it done by me here to-night. You enclose this order to 
my address through the post-office. By return post I will send the money to Plales. Be 
ready with a policeman at the post-office and seize him and charge him with the 
crime before he has an opportunity to explain, or to send the money back. He can 
only deny all knowledge of the affair — any thief would do the same — but who will 
believe him?” 

“ But might not the note addressed to him, being on the same kind of paper, im- 
plicate Mr. Hearsey and myself in the transaction?” thoughtfully suggested Mr. 
Tyrrell. 

“ To prevent this very thing is the object of this third blank sheet, which you are 
to secrete among Hales’ papers. While Hales is in your custody, you will take out a 
search warrant and discover the note addressed to Hales and the blank sheet which 
you have secreted. But first you will show the outlines of the slip attached to the 
order through the tissue paper. Then you will remove the slip and show that it ex- 
actly fits the place where it was torn off the note he received from you. The evidence 
will be conclusive. The blank sheet of this paper which you find there will prove that 
he keeps the material on hand, and is a professional forger.” 

“ But this plan involves an exposure of the paper, and it will be seen on examin- 
nation that the paper on which I wrote the note to Hales is of the same character as 


46 


THE WANDERING JEW 


the paper on which the order was written, and also as that of the blank sheet,” ob- 
jected Tyrrell. 

“ In the first place,” said Isaacs, “ I am the prosecutor in the case, and there will 
be no such examination as you fear, to show the kind of paper on which your note to 
Hales was written. I will retain the evidences in my own possession, and produce 
just so much as may be necessary to secure his committment without bail. When this 
is done, my purpose is accomplished. I have no revenge to gratify upon Mr. Hales, 
and shall prosecute him no further than is necessary to accomplish my purpose.” 

Upon the renewed assurance of Mr. Tyrrell that he fully comprehended the ar- 
rangement, Mr. Isaacs gave him the paper and the material, and ordering him to be- 
gin at once, dismissed him from his presence. 

“ Strike down the buck and secure the doe,” said Isaacs, rubbing bis hands when 
he was again alone. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


MY COUNTRY. 

The Senator was at home. He was seated at his desk and busily engaged at 
work. On his desk stood a basket full of papers and letters. The papers he merely 
glanced at and threw among the waste paper. But he read all the letters ; some rap- 
idly, merely noting the substance of their contents ; others he read more carefully. 
None of the letters were thrown away. He would put them back in their envelopes 
and make a mark or a sign upon them. Sometimes he would write out a brief memo- 
randum. His confidential secretary in the next room understood these marks and 
signs and would get the letters and answer them every one without exception, ex- 
actly as the Senator would have them answered, and would sign them with a fac simi- 
le of the Senator’s signature. This was his duty. Often he could not do all the work 
himself and would distribute the work among assistants and direct how it ought to be 
done. 

There was nothing of a strictly confidential nature in the letters turned over to 
the confidential secretary. Letters of that character the Senator arranged in the 
drawers of his desk and carried the key himself. The most of the letters answered by 
the secretary were for information or solicitations for petty offices, some of them vol- 
unteered advice and others begged support for some private bill ; some were for char- 
ity. They were on all possible subjects, but those given included the most of them. 

For these there were stereotyped answers, always courteous and pleasant, assigning 
some very satisfactory reason why the Senator could not do as requested ; which he 
regretted. On letters in relation to his support of bills, he — or rather his secretary — 
would say that the bill was not yet before the Senate, and until he should hear it dis- 
cussed he would not have the necessary information to justify his giving an opinion. 
Every correspondent received an answer and all were pleased, and some felt honored 
at receiving such a polite response, and signed, too, by the Senator himself. The 
secretary filed all the letters received, in order, in a book kept for that purpose. The 
names of the months were printed in gilt letters on the backs of these books in which 
the files were kept. 

The more important letters the Senator filed in his own desk and answered at his 
leisure. But it was a noticeable fact, that none, even of these letters, contained origi- 
nal matter of really great importance. They contained allusions to such matters and 
were explanatory of important matters, but they did not have direct reference to these 
matters themselves. This was because persons having such matters, requiring legis- 
lation or official action, were either present themselves or had their agents in the city, 
and these things were arranged orally, whereby a much better understanding could be 
arrived at between the parties. 

The compartments of the Senator’s desk were arranged under two divisions. One 
was labelled “Business,” and the other “Political.” The first had reference to his 
legitimate official duties, and the second referred to his individual political interests. 


IN AMERICA. 


47 


# Both these principal divisions were appropriately sub-divided and labelled. The 
division marked “ Political,” was the one of the most interest. It was labelled in one 
of the compartments with the names of the States. The Senator knew every man of 
any mark in every State who was his friend. He knew very many who were his 
friends who had not made any mark at all. In this division he kept large ledgers 
and books, and in one of these books he kept the names and post-office address of all 
his correspondents. 

In a row of very light covered books — so made to economize space and save 
strength in handling — on the upper shelf, extending the whole length of the desk, was 
recorded all the Congressional districts in the United States, with a sub-division of the 
counties under each. In every county in the country, (except the counties of his own 
State) where the Senator had friends upon whom he could rely, their names were 
written under the names of the respective counties where they resided. In his own 
State this arrangement was continued down to the townships. He was doing the same 
thing in the other States as hist as the increase of his friends permitted it. All this 
required labor, but the Senator never spared expense in clerk hire. He had been 
elected Governor and then Senator, owing to this laborious and thorough organiza- 
tion, and what might not be reached if this same plan was extended to the country at 
large? He was in the prime of life, enjoyed vigorous health, was possessed of great 
personal popularity, his ability was universally acknowledged and his fortune was 
very large. There was nothing that he might not aspire to. 

The Senator never received company in the evening before he had finished his 
mails and had given directions about answering the letters, and answering all that requir- 
ed answering from himself personally. This was his rule. Sometimes there were 
special cases and he made exceptions. But for general visitors and in all ordinary 
cases, he was inflexible. 

He had finished the contents of the basket, and the confidential secretary had 
taken out the last letters and closed the door behind him. He had written all his 
answers and put them into the mail-box and locked up his desk. He was relaxing 
himself a moment before he opened the door to admit the crowd that was in waiting 
below. 

This was the night that Rose was to visit him, and he was somewhat nervous and 
impatient. A female intrigue was the only thing which divided his mind with ambi- 
tion. It was yet early in the evening, and he intended to feign illness to get rid of his 
visitors, so that when Rose came he could have her alone. The Senator occupied his 
own private house. It was a dark and sombre looking building of grey stone, mossy 
and mildewed and one side covered with creeping vines. Its internal arrangements 
were made solely with a view to his own convenience. Being a single man, the house 
was not well adapted for a family. 

The waiting-room, the large parlors and the dining hall were on the first floor. 
On the second were arranged in suites, working rooms, private parlors, the library 
and bed rooms. The third story was for servants and lumber generally. 

The Senator rang the bell and ordered the servant who answered it to bring up 
the cards of the gentlemen in the waiting room below. The servant collected them 
upon a silver waiter and deposited them upon the Senator’s desk. The visitors were 
rapidly disposed of, all with comforting assurances, but disposed of nevertheless. The 
Senator plead illness. He was not usually ill, and it was not his habit to appear anx- 
ious to get rid of those who called. So he was excused. The servant himself de- 
clared that he had never seen the Senator so prostrate since he had been in his service. 

The Senator left his working-room and went into one of his private chambers 
where he intended to receive Rose. He gave special orders to his servants to admit 
no other visitors and to excuse him on account of indisposition, but if a young lady 
should come, to let her in. 

The chamber into which the Senator went was a temple dedicated to Venus. No 
man ever crossed its threshold except himself. Its ceiling was a dome frescoed with 
cupids and Hebes. From the centre was suspended a chandelier of silver, crusted 
in grotesque forms of satyrs, fauns and water-lilies. The walls were covered with white 
satin and hung with paintings of soft and glowing female forms of the school of Ru- 
bens. The carpet was elaborately manufactured to represent a cushion of thick green 
moss, sprinkled with red rose buds. The furniture— the ottomans, divans and sofas— 
was of massive black old mahogany, polished till it shined and gleamed like jet in 


48 


THE WANDERING JEW 


the reflected brilliancy of the chandelier. It was of the Turkish pattern and covered 
with Turkish cloth richly embroidered. On the mantles and etageres of the side fur- 
niture were exquisite vases filed with cut stone and rare and beautiful shells, and 
there were statuettes and carvings representing scenes in the loves of the water nymphs 
and the dryads. Immense bosks of fresh flowers in hanging baskets emitted their 
fragrance, and from a censer on an altar-shaped centre table, a fine, thin smoke, 
scarcely visible, curled upwards from the burning of aromatic gums. The oppressive frag- 
rance from the flowers and gums benumbed the senses and induced languor and passion. 
In one corner of the room was abed of eider down, half hidden from view by curtains of 
fleecy gauze. On the yellow maple canopy was painted the amours of Leda and the 
swan. 

The Senator was restless and uneasy. He looked at his watch and he paced the 
chamber. It was time for Bose to be there. Would she come, or would the little 
minx deceive him ? No woman had ever baffled him so long a time before. For 
the most part they had surrendered themselves willing victims on the first assault. 
And how should he receive Eose when she did come ? Should he continue the old 
fraud about art and her paintings, or should he throw himself at her feet and declare 
his love ? The Senator’s passion was consuming him. 

While these doubts and embarrassments were going on in his bosom, Eose was on 
her way to fill her appointment and meet him as she had promised. 

Poor thing ! She was thinking all the time about George Hales, and thinking 
that the Senator whom she was going to see was so very rich, and a great man and a good 
man. For so he had impressed her. She was thinking that her dying father had be- 
queathed her to God and her country; and she thought that the good, kind Senator would 
give her work, and that then she would have money and she and George would be so 
happy when they took their long rambles among the hills and were alone together in 
her little parlor. For since Madame Zarowski had ceased to give her work, she had 
been without means, and her rent would be due in the morning, and Hales was as 
poor as she was. So she hurried along under the gas lights to be in time to meet her 
appointment. 

But she did not see the dark, muffled form across the street as she entered the 
door of the Senator’s house. But if she had, it would not have attracted her atten- 
tion, she was so deeply occupied with the thought of getting work and earning a lit- 
tle money. 

In less than a minute after Eose had entered, Isaacs, for his was the muffled 
form across the street, crossed over and rang the bell at the same door. . 

The servant who opened it for him explained that the Senator was ill, and that 
he had received strict orders to admit no one. But Isaacs overcame his scruples. He 
told him that he understood the arrangement, and enforcing this argument with a few 
good gold pieces, the servant allowed him to enter the waiting-room. 

But he was scarcely seated before he heard a shrill, piercing scream from up- 
stairs. He rushed up into the Senator’s working room — another scream — he bursted 
through doors in the direction from which the screams proceeded, until he was in the 
chamber face to face with Eose and the Senator. The Senator stood humiliated, crest 
fallen, glowering and biting his lips in silence. Eose, with her face flushed with the 
rush of blood, her long, black hair streaming downher back, and her large eyes flash- 
ing with rage and indignation, was standing in a corner of the room, her lips half 
open as if to speak, her arm extended and her finger pointed at the Senator. 

There were broken glasses and vases, and scattered flowers on the carpet indicat- 
ing that there had been a struggle. 

“ This insult shall be avenged,” said Eose when Isaacs had entered ; and then left 
the chamber hastily without speaking another word, and passed into the street. 

“ Senator,” said Isaacs, before the former had recovered from his confusion, “ per- 
haps I have arrived in time to save you from utter ruin. How far you have suc- 
ceeded in carrying out what — from the disordered condition of this chamber — seems 
to have been your purpose, I do not know. But this is certain ; the girl has been 
deeply wronged and may find friends — aye, and powerful friends — to take her part.” 

The Senator had not yet recovered his wonted courage. His exposure had come 
upon him so unexpectedly and suddenly. He was abashed and confounded and timid, 
as the strongest men will be, from a sense of conscious and detected guilt. 

“ And what brought you to play the spy about my premises?” asked the Senator 


IX AMERICA. 


40 


With as tnuch scorn and contempt as he could force into his tone and accent under the 
embarassing circumstances. 

“Your own protection/’ replied the Jew, “and if your Senatorship will lay asid. 
all epithets and compose your feelings — which must be no less ruffled by my intrusion 
than by the ill success of your amorous enterprise — and consider the matter ration 
•ally, something may be evolved to your Senatorship’s advantage.” 

“And who are you that dares to address me in this insolent manner?” asked the 
Senator with rising indignation and anger. 

“Your master,” replied the Jew, carelessly smelling at a bouquet he had picked 
from one of the vases. 

“ Scoundrel and dog ! Begone from my presence before I pollute my hands with 
the touch of your Jewish carcass !” roared the Senator in a towering passion, risin: 
from his chair and advancing towards the bell to ring for his servants. 

“ Gently ; gently,” said the Jew. “ Would you send me for a warrant to have 
.'you arrested, and cause me to hire the greatest criminal lawyers to prosecute you fo" 
your crime, or would you risk a murder to remove a witness in preference? Should 
you attempt the latter alternative, you will find my nerves of a firmer texture than 
'those of a defenceless — as you suppose — and orphan girl.” 

The Jew triumphed. 

“ What would you say ?” asked the Senator resignedly. 

“ I would say that I am intimately acquainted with all your designs and purposes 
relative to this girl, and with all the arts and intrigues you have employed to bend 
her to your will since your first acquaintance with her at Madame Zarowski’s,” delib- 
erately answered the Jew. 

“Zounds! And has that false cat betrayed me?” ejaculated the Senator with 
bitterness. 

“ Madame Zarowski is in my service,” said the Jew, “and she informs me of a 
solemn pledge you made her to be performed on a certain condition. Is it still your 
purpose to fulfill that pledge upon the performance of the precedent condition ?” 

“ More than ever, Jew, since you have compelled my confidence and forced a right 
'to demand an answer,” replied the Senator. 

“ You do well to say more than ever,” said the Jew with a leer. “ Your true 
■connoiseur in matters of desire knows how to unite the passions. All the secret arts 
-of love known to the voluptuous Turk can teach no higher exstacy than to enjoy, and 
triumph, and revenge together. And you owe your willful little nut-brown maid a 
Wesson, eh ?” 

“And this unfortunate scene of to-night 

“All nonsense,” interrupted the Jew, “ you were awaiting me on some business; 
the girl came and annoyed you ; she was pert and you jocularly took some liberties ; 
she screamed, you discovered that she was a black-mailer and ordered her off the 
premises ; I am a witness to the substantial facts. You could have her arrested if 
you chose and it was not in conflict with our plan.” 

“And the girl 

“ Shall be yours,” replied the Jew before the Senator could finish his sentence. 
“ But,” he added with a warning look and gesture, “ remember your part of the con- 
tract. Remember that the Jew holds your honorable self and all your honorable col- 
leagues in the hollow of his hand. The wealth and power of this nationals his. Your 
public securities to which this broad land and the toil and sweat of this people are 
pledged are his also. He furnishes the means for your colossal enterprises and holds 
the mortgages upon them. He makes and unmakes your Senates with a breath. He 
controls your press and raises up your boasted party organisms and puts them down 
to suit his pleasure. He permits your nation to exist until it shall suit his purposes 
to destroy its life. Be wise. Adieu.” 

The Jew went his way and left the Senator alcAe in, the desecrated temple oi 
Venus. 


CHARTER XX. 

retributive justice. 

The plot against Hales, CQU.trly^' tyy- Isaacs an( i executed by Tyrrell, succeeded 


50 


THE WANDEBING JEW 


in every detail. Hales was arrested and in spite of all his protestations was looked up’ 
in a felon’s cell charged with an infamous crime. He had no friends — no money. 
It was a common thing. 

The affair caused no excitement whatever. It was the most natural thing in the 
world, it was said, for a spendthrift and a libertine and for one entertaining such infa- 
mous social opinions as he was said to entertain, to wind up in the State’s prison for 
forgery. 

The thought that he might be innocent occurred to no one who read an account 
of the affair in the evening papers. Those high toned journals enlarged upon the 
heinousness of the crime. They showed that the evidence was overwhelming. The 
high character of the witnesses, too, was noticed. There was Mr. Ilearsey’s clerk, 
who had been received into the most fashionable society in the city, Whose strict in- 
tegrity and gentlemanly bearing had been a matter of public observation. Mr. Tyr- 
rell, the gentleman in question. Was, further, a regular attendant at Doctor Piesing- 
ton’s church and that distinguished Divine would take pleasure in vouching for him, 
as would also Mr. Hearsey, who had shown his appreciation by appointing Mr. Tyr- 
rell his private secretary, a post to which no young man would be advanced unless his 
employer had the most undoubted evidence to convince him of his worth and character. 

The gravamen of the crime, however, was assigned to be that Mr. Isaacs had 
been made the intended victim. The Evening Luminary wished to know if there was- 
any one unacquainted with the fact that Mr. Isaacs was, perhaps, the greatest public 
benefactor in “our midst.” It was stated that his benefactions were not confined to one 
locality or section but embraced the entire country. His spirit of enterprise and vast 
means had enabled him to furnish employment to thousands and render them his debt- 
ors for their daily bread, while his large hearted liberality and charity had supplied 
the necessities arid the wants of the widow and the orphan. None other than just 
such a wretch as Hales was represented to be — as stated in this journal — could have 
conceived — much less perpetrated — such an atrocity on such a man. Society had cause 
to rejoice, as was stated further, that it had rid itself of one more of those pests who- 
disregarded the eternal fitness of things as expressed in the sublime and immutable 
law of supply and demand, made war upon the conveniences of society, and endeav- 
ored to organize strife by inciting a spirit of discontent and insubordination among 
the working men and women, who, that journal asserted, were contented and happy, 
and would do well enough, if the demagogues would only let them alone. 

The comments of th t “'Luminary 3 ’ were mere echoes of the sentiments of the' 
community. 

When Mr. Tyrrell informed Mrs. Hearsey of the arrest and imprisonment of 
Rose’s lover, that good lady’s delight knew no bounds. Mrs. Hearsey viewed things 
from her own stand-point. She had hated Rose from the time that Madame Zarowski 
had poisoned her mind with the suspicion that Doctor Plesington had look< d upon 
her with a favorable eye. She bore no special malice towards Hales personally, but 
anything which would humiliate Rose would be a triumph to her. So she got on her 
bonnet and furs and drove straight to Rose’s land-la<dy, made herself acquainted 
and stated to her all the circumstances, and wound up with warning her against the 
“ viper ” she was cherishing in her bosom. 

Isaacs complimented Mr. Tyrrell on the neatness and dispatch with which he had 
done up the job and told him that he was afraid that he would require his services 
before long in a much more serious business, in which Mr. Hearsey would be the victim. 

As Mr. Isaacs said this he looked strangely at Mr. Tyrrell. 

And Mr. Tyrrell looked strangely at Mr. Isaacs. 

Meanwhile, George Hales, humiliated and crushed, was lying in prison under 
^charge of an infamous crime, and Rose, as yet, knew nothing ,at all about it. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

DE PROFUNDIS. 

The night that Rose left the Senator’s house her sleep was broken and irregular. It 
<wa/> long before she could find repose at all. She had gone expecting work and had 
mu. with insult and violence. She had hoped to find the means of support for her- 


IN AMERICA. 


51 


•self and to aid Hales in his embarrassment and had received instead, dishonorable 
propositions. She now understood the meaning of all the Senator’s professed kindness 
towards her. 

She wondered what there was about her that had given the Senator the feeling of 
liberty to treat her as he had done ? She wondered if other girls had ever met with 
similar treatment. She was wounded in the heart. But she was not humiliated or 
crushed. There was a quality of steel about her heart and soul, and a glint in her 
dark black eye that showed a consciousness of self-respect and a spirit unsubdued. 
What would George say about it, she thought. Should she tell him or not ? There 
was no one else who cared for her or for whom she cared sufficiently to induce her to 
mention the matter at all. As to having any legal rights, the thought did not once 
occur to her. She thought she would not tell George ; it would only distress him to 
no purpose. But that she would revenge the insult, and revenge it terribly, was some- 
thing well settled in her mind. The only question was how and when? But there 
was no necessity for haste about this. It was one of those inevitable things of the fu- 
ture, like death, which must come. So she could afford to put by the thought for the 
moment. 

What more deeply interested her immediately was how she was to live, and how 
George was to live. She had failed to get any other pupils than George in her pro- 
posal to teach French and Italian. Madame Zarowski had given her no more work, 
and it was not probable that she would, though she had gone to her tableaux and 
acted in them for the express purpose of gratifying her, with a view of getting a con- 
tinuation of employment from her. In this she had failed. Neither could she sell 
her pictures at the shops. What could she do ? George could not aid her, for he was 
as unfortunately situated as herself. What was she do do? This was the question 
which kept repeating itself over and over again until it nearly drove her to insanity. 
She could not work upon the street or break stone or shovel earth; she had not the 
physical strength. She had no means of sustaining animal heat and life that she had 
not tried to render available, but without effect. 

In the morning her rent would be due and she could not pay it. She would be 
hungry and she would not be able to purchase food. In a few days her fuel would be 
all consumed, and how was she to get any more ? She could not even compete as a 
chamber-maid or as a cook or washer and ironer with a thousand brawny armed 
women that would step in and take the places before her. What was she to do ? She 
had no money and she had no friends able to help her — only one single friend, George 
Hales — Her conscience told her that she had done her duty and was pure. How gladly 
she would have done something that she was capable of doing to have given her a 
modest — a very modest — living, that she and George might be happy ! 

But there was no prospect — not even a hope. Why had she been born ? Why 
had she been placed upon the earth where she seemed to be an alien and an intruder ? 
Who was responsible for this grevious wrong and injustice? Not she herself; not 
her dear, old, dead father. When Rose thought of him she wept. It was the only 
thought that would bring tears to her eyes. 

She was becoming wild. The eternal repetition of the question, “ what shall I 
do ?” had fixed itself oft her brain. Awake, her brain would be beating with it ; in her 
broken slumber its monotonous throb would arouse her. Was she growing mad ? The 
eternal question in an eternal monotone beat through her nerves with every pulsation 
of her heart. It set itself to musical rythm and kept time to the throbbing of the 
heart and brain. “What shall I do?”— like the ticking of a clock, the first word to 
one stroke of the pendulum and the other three in the same time before the pendu- 
lum struck again. Rose was getting near to the doors of a mad-house. 

Should she go to the alms-house, or should she beg, or should she sacrifice her 
womanhood, or should she die? These seemed to be the only alternatives. “What 
shall I do?” 

A thousand girls have gone through just such moral agonies, but not one out of 
them all was like Rose. She had in her the fiery, revolutionary blood of the south. 
She was of the Latin races. She could have closed the doors and windows and set 
fire to the charcoal with as much care and deliberation as any grisette of Paris, had 
she thought it necessary ; but she did not think so. Her bosom was tossed with quite 
other emotions. 

She felt that a terrible wrong was being done to her. She felt that she had a 


THE WANDERING JEW 


)2 


ight to live and love George and be happy, and that she was being deprived of this 
>ight. Her resentment did not fall upon the Senator for this. It was this necessity 
vhich had driven her to him for work. She felt the wrong, but did not know where 
■ o place it. 

In her madness and despair she could have seized a torch and plunged it into all 
'he treasures of the wealth and the art of the ages, and plunged after it into the blaz- 
ng pile with a wild shout of defiance. She began to understand how it was, as her 
ather had told her, that ten thousand women excited by Camille Desmoulins could 
urge from Paris to Versailles, drawing canon, and pull down the horses of the royal 
officers and roast them at the fires they had kindled, and eat the half raw and quiver- 
ng flesh. She began to understand now that there were lofty moments of exalta- 
lion when the soul could laugh danger and death to scorn, and triumph over all in 
the hour of dissolution. She felt that the days of heroism were only ordinary days, 
and would be certain to appear again whenever the time came round. 

Rose wanted to live. She was young — not yet seventeen — she wanted to live and 
she wanted George to live, and she wanted to be happy with him. It would require but 
little — very little — for them to live and be as happy as the days were long. A little 
food and clothing and shelter, and fuel in the winter time — that was all — and how 
willingly they would both labor to secure it, if they only had an opportunity. The 
fishes of the sea and rivers lived; the birds of the air lived; the hares and foxes of 
the fields lived ; people all around her lived, and that too, without labor ; why could 
not she and George live, who were willing and able to do something for the common 
good? 

Rose was exalted and depressed by turns. Now she was elevated to heaven in a 
sacrificing effort of heroic darhg, and then she was dragged down to earth again when 
she thought that she might be turned into the street in the morning because she could 
not pay her rent. Her face was by turns hot and feverish with the excitement of high 
resolve, and pale and moist with large cold drops of perspiration. 

With these reflections and emotions Rose passed the night after her visit to the 
Senator, half waking, halt dreaming by fits and starts of Hales and the happy spirit 
land, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE LAST STRUGGLE. 

It was about nine o’clock in the morning following the wretched night which 
Rose had passed after her visit to the Senator, that Mrs. Hearsey had driven to Rose’s 
landlady and formed her acquaintance for the purpose of narrating to her the nrcum- 
stances of Hales’ arrest, and warning her against the “ viper.” 

Rose had risen unrefreshed and looked haggard and weary. She had put on her 
little pot of coffee to boil, more mechanically than from any want of stimulant or 
nourishment. She was still in her morning gown and did not seem to be making any 
preparations to dress for the day. 

She heard a sharp rap at the door. Surprised at a call at this unseasonable hour, 
she went to the door and opened it herself to see from whence proceeded the alarm. 

“ Begone from my house this instant !” cried her iandlady who stood before her 
with her face flushed with excitement and gesticulating violently with both hands. 
“ Begone ! How dare you disgrace my house ! Oft’, or the police will move you. 
Tour things will remain until your rent is paid.” 

The landlady was a long, sharp, keen, sallow woman of about forty-five, in white 
cap and apron, not scrupulously clean. 

Rose and her father had lodged there for two or three years, and Rose had re- 
tained the rooms after her father’s death. During all this time the rent had been 
punctually paid whenever it had become due, without, a single omission. Rose and 
her father had been, and Rose was, what are called by ladies renting small appart- 
rnentfj, “most excellent lodgers,” not merely on account of the regular payment of the 
rent, but because they were such quiet people. 


IN AMERICA. 


53 


The circumstance that Rose had not paid her rent would not have been a suffici- 
cient reason to have determined the landlady’s mind to give Rose such peremptory 
notice to leave the house ; neither would any suspicion of her own as to what might 
have been deemed an improper relation between her and Hales, or even the arrest and 
imprisonment of Hales itself been sufficient. Miss Brackman — for that was the land- 
lady’s name — was like all others of her class who had to subsist the best way they 
could by letting lodgings. When she knew her lodger well, and was satisfied, she 
would always prefer to overlook a failure to pay rent at the exact date than to deport 
herself in such a manner as to lose her customer. 

This would have been her course in regard to Rose, but for the intervention of 
Mrs. Hearsey. For this guardian of female virtue had whispered in Miss Brackman’s 
ear that morning, that an irregular intimacy existed between Rose and Hales, which 
in itself was nothing, it was tiue, but that it was the common talk in some of the best 
circles of society in the city, and that if she continued to keep Rose in her house, that 
her house would soon acquire a disreputable fame, and that Miss Brackman herself, 
however innocent, would be sure to share the opprobrium. 

Miss Brackman became alarmed and declared with emphasis that if she had had 
the most remote suspicion of such a state of things, she would have “dumped” 
the little hussy into the street in such an incredibly short space of time that her head, 
(the hussy’s), would have swam by reason of the suddenness of the change. 

Then Mrs. Hearsey proceeded to state the circumstances of Hales’ arrest and im- 
prisonment, his spendthrift habits, his debauchery and his profligate social principles 
and his final capture as a forger. Mrs. Hearsey also spoke of the search-warrant and 
of the material for forgery found in Hales’ possession, and did not doubt, if the truth 
•were known, that Rose was in collusion with him, if not an active partner in his 
crimes. She had no doubt that a similar warrant would have to be taken to make a 
search among Rose’s possessions, and she felt sure that the result of such an investiga- 
tion would establish Rose’s guilt beyond any question. But this, suggested Mrs. Hear- 
sey, would be extremely unfortunate for Miss Brackman, and for the hitherto respect- 
able character of her house. Mrs. Hearsey added in conclusion, as she was taking her 
leave, that she had been prompted in making these disclosures solely with a view to 
her — Miss Brackman’s — interest, and out of her — Mrs. Hearsey’s — general regard for 
the cause of virtue and religion. 

It was an event for a carriage to stop at Miss Brackman’s door ; how much greater 
an event was it for the great and fashionable Mrs. Hearsey, wife of the great railroad 
king, Mr. Hearsey, to get out of such a carriage and cross the threshold of Miss 
Brackman’s rented house ! 

This effort was not lost on the appreciative instinct of Miss Brackman. She was 
overwhelmed with confusion at the honor which Mrs. Hearsey’s visit had conferred 
upon her. It had placed her reeling under obligations to that lady which she felt she 
could never pay in life. It was, therefore, but the work of a moment after Mrs. Hear- 
sey had gone, to rush up stairs into Rose’s room and tell her that “ she must begone 
from her house in an instant.” 

What was Rose to do? She could not quarrel with Miss Brackman, for that 
would be to recognize an equality between them. It was not worthy of serious re- 
venge, and to gratify a petty spite for an insult from a low creature was not in Rose’s 
nature. So Rose merely told her that if she would speak in a respectful manner she 
would hear her, otherwise, being as yet mistress of her own apartments, she would 
close the door, for Miss Brackman had not entered the room. 

Although Rose gave no expression to any feeling in response to Miss Brackman’6 
brutality, yet her sensitive nature was keenly alive to the terrible circumstance, which 
in a manner, put her at the mercy of Miss Brackman’s insults. Rose could not pay 
her rent and it was due. She did not have one single dollar in the world. She was 
a “pauper” and Miss Brackman had a right to tell her so and to call her a swindler 
and to threaten her with the police. 

Rose was ignorant as yet of the fate of Hales, and thought that Miss Brackman’s 
outbreak was due to the fact that she had not been able to pay her rent. But she was 
at once to be undeceived and made acquainted with the fearful calamity which had 
fallen upon her. 

“A pretty piece of business to have the police searching your trunks for stolen 
property and burglars’ things and all that,” said Miss Brackmau in a hurried and ex- 


54 


TIIE WANDERING JEW 


cited manner, “ and you a lodger in my house, and me a poor but honest woman ! Go 
to your lover, Hales, or whatever his name is, and never put foot in my house again 
until you come to pay your rent, for if you do, I will have you taken to the station- 
house for a common thief. If you want to know where to find your lover, you will 
find him lying in jail for forging an honest man’s name to a note.” 

Rose only heard the last words that had been spoken. Hales in prison ! For 
forgery ! It could not be ! It was some awful mistake ! Some terrible dream ! 

Rose sprang upon Miss Brackman like a young leopard. She seized her fiercely 
by the arms. Every fibre of her body quivered. Her eyes flashed fire and her dark- 
brown face turned crimson. 

'• Infamous woman ! You lie ! ” cried Rose, utterly losing herself in a paroxysm 
of rage and grief. u You would add to my tortures by your base slanders. George 
Hales is innocent of any crime. He is not in prison, say that he is not in prison or I 
will tear your foul tongue from your throat ! ” shrieked Rose in tones frantic with de- 
spair and clutching Miss Brackman’s throat and tightening her grasp. Then in a mo- 
ment she relaxed her hold and fell at her feet and implored her to have mercy upon 
her. She plead with her to tell her that what she had said was not true, but merely 
intended to insult her because she could not pay her rent. She plead with all the elo- 
quence of a strong woman’s heart in the desolation of its love ; she clung to hope with 
the tenacity of the drowning wretch who catches at the sea-weed and is washed life- 
less ashore with his hands clutched upon it in the rigidity of death. 

In vain ! 

Miss Brackman was not wicked and bore no malice towards Rose. And now, see- 
ing that poor, crushed, half-senseless thing crouching in terror at her feet, she took pity 
upon her and told her with a kinder accent that what she had stated was true ; that 
George was then in prison on a charge or forgery; and that her own — Rose’s — name was 
mentioned in connection with the affair. 

After Miss Brackman had made this explanation she retired. 

Rose did not weep or sob or wring her hands or tear her hair. She was calm — 
terribly calm and still — but very cold and pale. 

What could she do? She had no money or any friends, and Hales needed both. 
Madame Zarowski would not help her — even if Rose could find her — for she had even 
refused to give her work when she needed it, and besides, Rose was proud. 

She glanced round her room. She took an inventory of all her worldly posses- 
sions as she had done that chill Autumn evening after she came home from her father’s 
funeral. But with quite other emotions. Then her sorrow was sanctified and soothed 
by all the tender recollections of the past. The peaceful spirit of her father could 
look down on her from its sphere of calm repose and could bless her. 

There stood the same table at which her father had pursued his art, and upon it 
was the old mahogany flute case with the flute oiled and laid away as he had left it. 
There was the old and well-worn copy of Jean Paul standing at its accustomed place. 
There was the old arm-chair. Rose had preserved these from a sense of religious ven- 
eration for her father’s memory and she loved to see them about her. It kept her 
father’s spirit nearer to her she thought. And that spirit would be happier too, Rose 
thought, when it lingered in her presence, if these relics were near. 

Rose’s furniture consisted of a bed and fixtures, a little parlor stove, her father’s 
table — ns she called it — where Hales used to write, a table in the centre of the room, 
and a cupboard in the corner. 

She changed her clothes. She put on a heavy, stout woolen dress and laid out 
her cloak. Then she took out all her articles of wearing apparel from her trunk. 
She laid them neatly together and folded them up in a large bundle. 

There were some toys and trinkets that she had played with when a child. There 
was a wax doll, a little China set of play things and an ivory cup and ball. Then 
there were two rings. One had been her mother’s wedding ring ; the other had been 
a birth-day present from her father. They were not worth much in money. 

All these articles Rose laid on her father’s table to themselves. 

Then she put out the fire in the stove. 

After she had done this she went out and found a second-hand dealer and brought 
him to her room and sold him the furniture for cash in hand. 

Tt was then a little after ten o’clock and the things were to be removed that after- 
noon. 

When Rose had finished business with the dealer, she put the toys and thetrink- 


IN AMERICA. 


55 


ets and the two rings and the copy of Jean Paul and the flute with its mahogany case 
all into a little basket — the one she used to carry with George and her father in their 
rambles among the hills — she took the basket and the clothing and left the house. She 
took along the cithern . 

The landlady did not see her go, or if she did, she never stopped her to make in- 
quiries. 

Eose went to a dealer and sold the clothing. 

Then she went to a pawn-broker and pledged the toys and the trinkets, the rings, 
the copy of Jean Paul, and the flute with the mahogany case and the cithern. 

There was a gleam of hope and Eose thought one day she might redeem these 
treasures. 

When she had turned into money all her earthly possessions except the clothing 
which she wore, she sought the prison where George Hales was lying. 

When she arrived, the jailor, a blunt, plain-spoken man, told her she had no bus- 
iness there ; that it was no place for the “ likes of her.” He told her further that it 
was little satisfaction she would get if he let her in, for the prisoner Hales was in a 
raging fever and rattling all kinds of nonsense in his delirium. The doctor, he said, 
did not think he would live over the night ; he had the prison fever and his brain was 
affected. At last he told Eose roundly that he could not let her in without a permit 
from the proper officer and that she need not waste her time. 

Another long and weary tramp for Eose. She would not hire a carriage, urgent 
as the case was, for George would need the money. She set out to get the permit. 
She was desolate and heart-broken, but the strong angel came to her now and lifted 
up her soul and will far above the real, working world around her. She was tired and 
foot-sore, but she kept on her way. She knew that Hales was innocent and she knew that 
he had been made the victim of some dark plot, which she could not understand. She 
scorned and despised the laws ; she despised the miserable creatures who hired them- 
selves out for pay to execute them ; she despised the dumb, stupid people among 
whom she passed, for submitting to them. 

She found the proper officer at last, stated her request, and received a permit. 

Another long walk back and a presentation of the permit, and the jailor let her 
to Hales’ cell. 

He was dying. 

At her request, Eose was locked in with him that she might the better give him 
the last attentions that he would need on earth. 

The cell was in the lower range where the worst class of criminals were confined. 
The air was foul and noisome. None could penetrate from without, and all the light 
that entered through the grating of the door was from the dim and narrow stone cor- 
ridor, in each end of which a feeble jet of gas was burning. The stone floor of the 
cell was cold and damp. There were two great iron rings there where prisoners were 
sometimes chained down. The stone walls were covered with green mould and were 
scrawled over with the reflections of former occupants. The prisoner was allowed two 
old blankets which smelled of disease. 

Eose’s womanhood did not forsake her. She watched over and tended her dying 
lover in his prison cell with all the tender care of a mother for her first born. The 
jailor passed to and fro on his rounds in the corridor but never interrupted them. 

Hales could not speak. His eyes were growing glassy. But he was young, and 
terrible as the stroke upon his brain had been, and fierce as the prison fever was, the 
spirit seemed loath to take its flight, though reason had already gone. The spirit 
seemed as if it wished to speak ; to say something, before it could depart in peace. It 
seemed to suffer intense pain and agony in making a vain effort for expression. The 
struggle lasted long. Eose, seated upon the cold, damp stone floor, rested the head of 
the dying man upon her lap and sponged his forehead and lips with vinegar. The 
jailor passed his rounds, the sun was sinking and Eose kept watch. Not a sigh or a 
sob escaped her. She seemed to be as cold and strong as the iron bars that formed 
the grating of the door that shut her in with George. And , still she watched and 
ministered to her dying lover. She had no emotions. Over her soul there reigned 
a calm ; the calm that preceedg a high resolve. She did not reflect. The Infinite 
Soul was working spontaneously within her own. 

Eose heard the fatal rattle in his throat, the infallible precursor of dissolution. 
She observed the nervous twitching and the wild, restless glare of his glassy eyes. 


56 


THE WANDERING JEW 


She noticed his nervous fumbling at the blankets. Her instinct told her that the end 
was near. 

Suddenly there was a change. At once he became calm, the twitching ceased, 
the death rattle was still, his features became composed and his eyes resumed their 
natural expression. 

He turned his eyes upon Rose full of all the love of other days and reached out 
his arms to clasp her round the neck and said clearly and distinctly, “ Rose,” and then 
was DEAD. 

The jailor unlocked the door and let Rose out. She gave him all the money she 
had and made him promise to give Hales as decent an interment as he could. The 
jailor promised. 

When Rose reached the open air it was dark. It was cool and damp. It was 
late at night. The full moon gave out a dull and gloomy light from behind the dense 
masses of fog and mists. The wind moaned in fitful gusts at intervals and then was 
still. Rose was walking in the direction of the South. She was insulted by some 
ruffians of the night, but she did not heed them. She continued on her course. 

Presently she came to great piles of coal and could distinguish the masts of the 
vessels. She was approaching the river. She looked round to see if she were pursu- 
ed. No one was to be seen. 

She reached a dismantled old quay, where the water was deep and the steamboats 
used to come. She gathered her cloak around her and stood gazing into the black 
water below, beneath the dull and misty light of the full moon that dreary, moaning 
night. She thought of George, driven to prison and to death. She thought of her 
dear old father and the flute and the mahogany case ; she thought of her mother, 
whom she could dimly remember as the angel of her childhood in happy Southern 
Frarice. 

She inclined forward, when she was suddenly seized by a strong arm and forced 
violently backwards. 

It was Isaacs, who had learned she had gone to the prison, and had watched and 
tracked her since she had left it. 

“ What evil being are you who would snatch a worn and weary creature from 
her rest and peace ? ” asked Rose imploringly. 

“ A friend,” was the reply. 

“ Why should I live?” 

“ For revenge .” 

“ And can you give it to me?” 

“ I can.” 

“ Then take me with you.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


THE SACRIFICE. 

The next morning Rose awoke in a luxurious chamber in the house which had 
been formerly occupied by Madame Zarowski. That lady had made her final exit 
from the scene and Rose had been installed by Isaacs in her stead. That day she ad- 
dressed a note to the Senator, and that, night she rested in his arms, and the Grand 
Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill was secured. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


# AD finem. 

Madame Zarowski has passed from the scene, and let us hope has found rest and 
peace at last. 

Mr. Hearsey’s dead body was picked up floating in the water by the New York 
harbor police. There had been a mystery about his death, which had never been un- 


IN AMERICA. 


5 ? 


ravelled. He was in New York, the papers said, to attend a meeting of a Railroad 
company of which he was the President. He had called a special meeting and had 
an important proposition to make. What this proposition was no one ever knew, for 
Mr. Hearsey never lived to attend the meeting which he had called. His confidential 
clerk, a Mr. Tyrrell, had accompanied him from Washington and had disappeared at 
the same time. 

Mrs. Doctor Plesington still continues to relieve the sufferings of the poor and 
the needy and to believe in her husband, the Doctor, as implicitly as ever. 

Doctor Plesington has made a fortune and retired from the pulpit and devotes his 
time to consoling Mrs. Hearsey’s widowhood. 

A terrible calamity over-took the Senator. He was suddenly seized with a strange 
disorder, such as the physicians had never witnessed and against which all their reme- 
dies were of no avail. In the midst of the most vigorous health and activity, his mind 
gave way by degrees until he became a perfect imbecile. He gave Rose money and 
jewels as long as he had any ready means and then disposed of his estate and gave the 
proceeds to her. He lived but a short time after the curse fell upon him and died an 
idiot. 

Rose did not remain with the Senator until his death. After she had exhausted 
all his means and secured them to herself, she left him to die in poverty and among 
strangers, calling out her name. 

Rose herself is in Paris now, where you may see her sometimes in the Bois de 
Boulogne, driving two Arabians, one milk white and the other jet black. Sometimes 
you may see her in a private box at the opera, sparkling in jewels and fashion and 
entertaining half a dozen elegant gentleman at the same time. But she takes them 
to the card tables and ruins them and then turns them adrift. She is sparing of her 
favors and takes remarkable care of her health and of her wondrous beauty. They 
call her in Paris la tigresse. But she is kind to the poor and lavish in her charities 
to suffering prisoners. 

The Grand Consolidated Railway Land Grant Bill became a law and the individ- 
ual interests under it vested according to the contract that was executed between Pies- 
ington, Hearsey and Isaacs, that bitter cold night at Isaacs’ house. 

There were some rumors of bribery connected with the transaction, but that was 
all disproved and found to have originated in a forged letter of credit, demanding 
money for pretended services in favor of the Bill. The scoundrel who had forged the 
letter was imprisoned and had died in jail — it was said. 


THE END. 




\ 


/ 


THE WANDERING JEW 

IN 

AMERICA. 

This is the title of a book, written by Mr. Win. M. Coleman, late of 
North Carolina, and well-known in that State, but now a practicing At- 
torney at Law in Washington City. This book is certainly one of the 
most powerful works ever issued from the American Press. Its satire 
and sarcasm are terrible. It brings forth into the light of day, with 
fearful vividness, the corrupt practices adopted to influence Congress- 
ional legislation, and shows how manly honor and womanly virtue are 
both sacrificed to rob the masses of the American people for the benefit of 
a few shoddy millionaires. In short, it is a picture — written in popular 
style that every one who reads can understand — of the deep degradation 
into which our institutions have fallen, and of the utter hopelessness of 
all efforts at reform until the great overshadowing Money Power is 
broken and ground to powder. 

As a great political work, the book will take its place along with 
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Helper’s Impending Crisis;” while as a 
piece of literary art, it surpasses them both. It is the book for the times, 
and should be in the hands of every American citizen. 


Single copies, free of postage, (in paper) oQ cents. 

“ “ “ <4 (in cloth) To. cents. 

Address — 


J. G. HESTER, 
Publisher, 

Washington , IJ. C. 


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